PPA111607

=Study: Pa. schools need cash=

A panel said $4.8 billion - a 28% hike - was required to remedy underfunding. Phila. would get $1 billion.
By Dan Hardy, Amy Worden and Nick Pipitone Inquirer Staff Writers

Pennsylvania is underfunding public education by $4.8 billion and it will take a 28 percent spending increase to remedy the problem, according to a study on school funding commissioned by the Pennsylvania legislature and released yesterday. The state's poorest districts were the most underfunded, the study found.

If the legislature goes along with the recommendations, the state's share of education funding would increase from 37 percent to 60 percent. The average per-student spending would increase $2,545, to $12,057. And almost all districts - 474 of 501 - would get extra money. Philadelphia would get $1 billion more. Many other area districts also would see big hikes: Delaware County's Upper Darby would get about $52.7 million and Central Bucks would get $42 million, for example. Of the 64 districts in Philadelphia and its suburbs, 16 spend more than the recommended minimum. The study does not propose cutting any district's funding but instead says more money should be given to underfunded districts.

Though the report did not address the source of the extra money, there is widespread agreement among reformers and lawmakers that almost all would come from the state. The study does not address how the state would come up with the money or whether there should be a shift from property taxes to income or sales taxes. Philadelphia School District interim chief executive Thomas M. Brady praised the study for making "a powerful case for the city, other than just the CEO standing up and saying 'we want more money.' "Upper Darby Assistant Superintendent Lou DeVlieger said the report "validates everything we've been saying all along" about inadequate state funding. The Upper Darby district spends $8,671 per student, and the study says it needs to spend $12,961 to adequately educate its 11,997 students. The Lower Merion School District is the wealthiest district in the area, spending $17,184 per student, 30 percent more than the report deemed necessary for an adequate education.

District Superintendent Jamie Savedoff said that while he supported increased state aid to needy districts, "it should not be done by dumbing down the best school districts in the state."In Harrisburg, legislative leaders said it was too early to comment on the findings, but what they said exposed the political fault lines between Republicans and Democrats. Education-reform advocates, along with champions of more state spending on education and many school district superintendents, said they hoped the study would spark a reconsideration by lawmakers of how education is funded in Pennsylvania. They said they planned to campaign for implementation of the study's recommendations. "This is a chance to create a better future for all kids - not just for some, depending on zip code," said James Barker, superintendent of the Erie city school district and a state Board of Education member. Janis Risch, the executive director of Good Schools Pennsylvania, a group that has lobbied for more education funding and more equity among districts, said: "Finally, after years of guesses and estimates, we have a definitive answer as to what it takes to have the students in the state meet the academic standards." The Board of Education has scheduled six public meetings around the state between Nov. 27 and Dec. 6 to present the study's findings and hear public comment. While the study goes to the education committees in the legislature, no action is mandated. Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Minority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson), said he was skeptical about the price tag. "Ask Pennsylvanians if they are undertaxed," Miskin said. For Republicans to support any increases in spending, they would have to be assured that districts could spend the money as they saw fit so long as they also were held accountable, he said. Rep. James Roebuck (D., Phila.), chairman of the House Education committee, said the report "sets a course to take over the next few years." It points up funding shortfalls that should have been addressed long ago, he said. Chuck Ardo, Gov. Rendell's spokesman, said the governor was reviewing the study. Gerald Zahorchak, Pennsylvania's education secretary, said in a statement that the report "should serve as a wake-up call that . . . we must accelerate the rate of progress for the sake of our students."

A public-opinion poll conducted this fall for the Education Policy and Leadership Center, a Pennsylvania think tank and advocacy group, showed that 56 percent of 800 respondents said the current education-funding system was unfair. Also, 54 percent said that public schools spent too little to educate their students and 85 percent said that the state should pay a greater share of school districts' expenses. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. Pennsylvania ranked 45th among the 50 states in the percentage of public-school education spending coming from the state in 2004-05, the latest period for which figures were available. That year, the state funded 35.8 percent of all public-school education spending. The rest came from local and federal funding. Only three states have a wider gap in per-pupil spending between the richest and the poorest districts. State education spending - nearly $9 billion this year - makes up more than a third of the Pennsylvania budget.

The study is based on the goal of all students mastering state standards in 12 academic areas and reaching proficiency in reading and math by 2014. It came up with a base rate for the cost of an adequate education and added more based on each district's size, location and number of special-education, gifted, poor and limited-English students. The per-student cost figure did not include non-classroom costs such as transportation, capital expenditures and debt service. The $648,000 study was conducted by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates Inc. of Denver, which has conducted such studies for other states.


 * __Key Findings__**
 * Pennsylvania is underfunding public-school education by $4.81 billion.
 * In 2005-06, it cost, on average, $12,057 to educate a student adequately, but schools were spending only $9,512 per student.
 * Spending would have to increase 28 percent to close the gap.
 * The state's poorer school districts also are the ones that are the most underfunded.
 * Of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts, 474 - all but 27 districts - are underfunded to some degree.

Read the study at **http://go.philly.com/costingout**

Contact staff writer Dan Hardy at       610-701-7638   or [|dhardy@phillynews.com]. ||