How much and why has the cost of Education increased in light of the state and federal governments unwillingness to live up to its promises and former constitutional requirements? In Many instances on the national and state level we have and continue to witness an extraordinary shell game. Governors and Legislators get elected on a fiscal restraint agenda and enact what appear to be cost cutting measures. It is only later that we find out they simply passed the cost of those services on to local governmental agencies.
We have a classic example of that from the mid 90’s to 2003. The State obligation for Education is a 50% share of the cost. The last time this Commonwealth lived up to that responsibility was in the 1972 – 73 fiscal year when it paid 50.96% of its share of the cost. Since then it has been a steady decline to 2007-2008 level when the state’s share was 32.99%. This is why our state receives a C or D grade from the “Leaders and Laggards” report card on educational innovation.
What does that mean to you at the local level? It means local school Boards must raise local taxes to make up the difference in state and federally mandated programs that carry little or no financial support with them. The highly touted NCLB legislation is a classic example of federal legislation, which on its surface, sounded like a marvelous idea, but carried with it little if any federal funds.
In Pa. we have a timeline replete with costly legislative changes beginning in 1970 with the passage of Act 95{collective bargaining} and the creation of IU’s to replace the county wide system, which is still a better idea. It would save a great deal of money by eliminating administrative positions without forgoing individual districts identity and simply consolidating programs and services.
In 1972-73 mandated transportation of non-public students { which has increased from a per pupil cost of $77 in 1971 to $779 in 2007}.
1975 brought the IDEA which was rapidly followed by the revisions in ‘83,’86,’90,’97 and 2004.
1990 brought us gifted education.
1991 brought us PSSA’s.
1992 gave us Act 88.
1994-1995 brought an end to ESBE funding and excess costs for special education services. This meant the state would no longer pay districts what it actually cost them to implement all those IDEA requirements but based some imaginary mathematical formula allowed those real costs to be shifted to the local school district.
1996 brought Charter Schools {which were to improve quality of education and save taxpayers money by being more efficient}.
Here are two examples of how that has worked out.
Rockwood School District paid $228,311 in 2009-10 and got reimbursed $60,256 by the state. Somerset paid out $432,621 and got reimbursed $114,176. Countywide districts paid $1,581,040 and got back $417,260.
So again local taxpayers picked up the cost difference for a program where half the students are cyber schooled and receive a family computer and paid internet services. Local school districts would gladly provide all their students these things but cannot afford to.
2001 gave us the major change in our pension and retirement laws. The Pension and Retirement Law change in 2001 is a classic illustration of what we have all so willingly allowed our elected officials to perpetrate on us and now we face another fiscal crisis, which is still being ignored by our Legislature so that they can win points with their respective party leadership.
Why did the change of 2001 occur? Primarily the belief that by incentivizing older teachers to retire they could then be replaced with younger less costly staff. The approach had a twofold problem in that it did not fully take into account the substantial increases in salaries those younger teachers would accrue over time and it didn’t understand how difficult it would be to replace key staff such as science, math and administrative personnel. Therefore Districts found themselves needing to pay top dollar for those key staff in order to attract them.
Another key factor in this pension crisis is that it was based again on faulty projections of the booming investment upswing of the 90’s. We all assumed the incredible upward swing would always continue. We all know how that worked out because we relied on the unfettered free market system and our own collective greed.
Another of the prevalent myths today is based on the 1996 creation of Charter schools which were created in order to improve the quality of student performance and were to be more cost effective than their Public School counterparts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Future articles will examine the performance and assessment data for Charter Schools, which will hopefully challenge your current views on their real academic prowess.
This week we will concentrate on the financial impact they have on our state and national expenditures. In Pa between the 2006 and 2008 school districts have paid over $315 million dollars to Cyber Charter Schools alone. Of that amount the State only reimburses the districts at a rate of somewhere between 26% to 36% or $94.5 million level.
That means another mandate that our elected officials impose on local districts and then leave them to pay for! Here are three case studies of how this legislation has worked out locally:
Rockwood School District paid out $228,311 in 2009-10 and got reimbursed $60,256 by the state. Somerset paid out $432,621 and got reimbursed $114,176. Countywide districts paid out over $1,581,040 and got back $417,260. So again local taxpayers picked up the cost difference for a program where half the students are cyber schooled and receive a family computer and paid internet services which local school districts would gladly provide all their students but cannot afford to. The Philadelphia City School District paid out $313,790,529 and was reimbursed $115,830,766 with local taxpayers again being asked to make up the difference.
In 2007-2008 four of the state’s 11 cyber charter schools had fund balances of over 25%. Local districts can legally only carry 8 to 12% if they are fortunate enough to be able to do so! We are paying for programs for 4 year olds to attend charter schools while in our regular schools we cannot get funding to provide the same level of service.
Why did we need to create another entire bureaucracy when all we needed to do here was allow public schools the same discretion they now give Charter schools?
Think of the duplication of hierarchy we could have prevented.
What if we had allowed regular public school administrators to discipline students in the manner that is often permitted to Charters?
What if we had allowed public schools the same opportunity to assign class credit, eliminate unnecessary seat time/ artificial instructional hour provisions that we grant charters?
What if we had reduced the professional development requirements for Public Schools?
What if we had eliminated the artificially contrived certification requirements for teachers and administrators of Public Schools?
What if we had allowed Public Schools to offer early start programs with reimbursement for four year olds as we do for Charters?
What if we allowed public schools the same loose attendance checks on students as we do for charters?
I could continue on and on but the obvious reality is that had we done some of the aforementioned changes we would not have needed to create another elaborate bureaucratic structure and thus prevented the current politicization of our Educational Reform initiatives. Nor would we have turned over one of our Nation’s nonprofit institutions to the robber barons of our Capitalist System!
Does anyone really want their children’s education turned over to a for- profit enterprise in which their education is turned over to an administrator who is more motivated by his or her performance pay which is based on the ledger bottom line and not your children’s academic well being? I don’t!
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