From the Pittsburgh Daily Courier
Taxing situations
By Judy Kroeger, DAILY COURIER Saturday, August 2, 2008
Republican state Rep. John Perzel has introduced legislation to eliminate school property taxes for eligible senior citizens while Democratic Rep. David Levdansky has offered a proposal that would freeze millage rates set by school districts in January 2009 and eliminate them in 2010.
Perzel's legislation, House Bill 1600 and House Bill 1951 would apply slots income to eliminate school property taxes for homeowners 65 and older with annual incomes of $40,000 or less.
As written, Perzel's bill states that qualifying senior citizens would send their school property tax bill to the State Department of Revenue within 45 days of receipt. The revenue department would send a check to the school district for the amount of property tax owed.
Perzel said the legislation would help 600,000 homeowners throughout the state. The program would cost $1 billion of the state's estimated $1.1 billion slots money.
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Currently, all property owners who qualify for homestead or farmstead exclusions divide slots money under Act 1. The money will, for the first time this year, reduce property taxes by amounts varying by district, regardless of the property owners' age. A constitutional amendment would be necessary to take the rebates and apply it only to the elderly.
"When gambling came to Pennsylvania, it was with the promise that the revenue would be used to provide property tax relief," Perzel said. "My bill does exactly that."
The legislation has been voted out of the House Finance Committee, and may come to a full House vote when the body reconvenes after Labor Day.
"This legislation will keep a long-overdue promise to Pennsylvania's seniors," Perzel said. "No senior should ever have to choose between buying food or medicine and paying their property tax bill."
Levandsky's proposal is broader. "My bill provides the ultimate in property tax relief -- it eliminates the tax entirely -- freezing millage rates next year will halt any tax increases before school property taxes would be eliminated in 2010. My legislation gives the General Assembly until 2010 to decide how to provide adequate and stable funding for our public schools that is fair and does not unduly burden senior citizens and working families." The House Finance Committee has approved the amendments.
He said that once rates are frozen, the bill would give lawmakers 15 months to implement a permanent method to eliminate school property taxes. In the meantime, the Legislature would transfer funds from the Budget Stabilization Reserve Fund, also called the Rainy Day Fund, to cover any allowable increases approved by school boards in 2009.
Levdansky also has proposed a constitutional amendment (House Bill 1947) to eliminate school property taxes for homeowners only, which passed the House unanimously last January. The Senate has taken no action.
A constitutional amendment must pass in two successive legislative sessions and receive voter approval. Levdansky said the time lag is why he proposed an amendment to Perzel's House Bill 1600 "to completely eliminate school property taxes in 2010."
Rep. Jess Stairs (R-Fayette/Westmoreland), said his first choice for gambling money "would be to give it to everybody. Not far behind is to give it to seniors."
Stairs has come to that conclusion because Act 1 is "unfortunately, not widely accepted. In poorer districts, it's accepted. If you get a $200 reduction on a $700 tax bill, you might be for that, but if you can only give a little to everybody, give it all to seniors."
Stairs said property tax relief will remain a big issue when lawmakers return after the summer recess. "There was some relief under Act 1 with gaming, but it was minimal."
Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fayette) called Perzel's bill "a political statement," but voted for it. "We need to do something." He acknowledged that the bill, allowing senior school property taxes to be eliminated at the expense of younger taxpayers is "against the constitution to let one group get it and not another, but I voted for Perzel's bill. I vote for anything that would benefit seniors. I would vote for a constitutional amendment. We need change. There is no question that we need change or we'll be left behind."
Mahoney said he has seen seniors in homes they cannot afford any longer due to school taxes. He said the first billion of gambling money would provide real relief to senior homeowners and any more "would be divided down to others."
Rep. Deberah Kula (D-Fayette) also voted for Perzel's original bill. "That legislation came through so quickly. How do you ever vote against eliminating property taxes for seniors?"
In the time since the vote, she said she has spoken to seniors who have expressed concern for their children and their grandchildren who also suffer under high school property taxes.
Kula said several options exist for eliminating school property taxes, including a 0.5 percent increase in sales tax for items currently taxed. She does not favor taxing food and medicine. Kula said she would support taxing clothing, which currently is exempt. "I am not in favor of expanding it to everything," she said.
A small increase in the earned income tax would also be needed to eliminate school taxes, but Kula did not specify how much.
She said a combination of slight tax increases combined with gambling revenue would "provide more relief to more people. I lean to that from the feedback I've received. The sales tax, everyone would pay a share based on purchasing habits."
Monday, August 4, 2008
Special education needs soar
From the Centre Daily Times
Special education needs soar
Dena Pauling Monday, Aug. 04, 2008
EDUCATION: Certification to help Pa. teachers with changing classrooms
Pennsylvania expects children with special needs to be taught in the same classrooms as their peers whenever possible — not segregated in special rooms for the entire school day.
This “least-restrictive environment” approach toward special education has been around for years. But with about 70,000 more children enrolled in special education statewide than just a decade ago, the State Board of Education has made sweeping changes to ensure that approach is being followed.
All newly certified teachers — regardless of whether they teach history, physics, art or elementary education — will be required to have extra training in special education. And those who do pursue special education certifications must have a second certification to achieve what is known as “highly qualified status” to be able to better assist other teachers.
Though the new requirements won’t begin to kick in for another three years, Kelly Watson hopes students such as her daughter, who has autism and bipolar disorder, can get help.
“We have struggled,” she said. “Our daughter has been in four different schools and home-schooled.”
Watson, who lives in the Philipsburg area, said schools just aren’t equipped to know how
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to handle children with special needs. Too often, children with Down syndrome and autism, for example, are just “lumped together” in the same special education classrooms for extended periods of time, she said.
“Nobody seems trained well enough to be able to handle her situation, and that’s very frustrating for us,” she said. “We just want to get her educated, and we can’t seem to do that.”
The push behind the changes in teacher certification initially came from “parents coming forward and saying our kids are not getting the services they need in general education classrooms,” said David McNaughton, an associate professor in Penn State’s department of educational and school psychology and special education.
Part of the reason could be traced to the sheer volume of children now being identified with special needs. Deneen Keller, a Penns Valley special education teacher, and Ellen Campbell, a State College English teacher and reading specialist, say they see more children with special circumstances each year.
Autism, in particular, Keller said, “has grown phenomenally.”
State Department of Education statistics prove those assumptions. While total enrollment has remained flat both statewide and locally, the number of children in special education has risen significantly during the past 10 to 15 years.
Excluding gifted and pre-school- aged children, there were 272,255 students enrolled in special education statewide in 2006-07, up from 208,421 in 1990-91. That’s a 30.6 percent increase.
In the Central Intermediate Unit 10, which includes school districts in Centre and Clearfield counties, there were 4,304 students enrolled in special education in 2006-07 — almost 1,000 more than in 1990-91.
In anticipation of the upcoming requirements, colleges and universities are revamping their educational programs to prepare students and retrain teachers.
“Things are just constantly changing,” said Keller, who has taught special education for 17 years. “And for me, it brings me up to speed on what is going on statewide.”
Keller is among those enrolled in Penn State’s new EPIC program, short for Evidence- Based Practices for Inclusive Classrooms and Differentiating Instruction. McNaughton is one of the instructors.
The courses are designed to help teachers learn strategies they can use to help children with all kinds of specific physical and behavioral issues including autism, blindness, attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder and mental retardation.
Keller said she’s seen a “definite push” toward the strategy of co-teaching. Two teachers, one of whom could be certified in special education, work in the same classroom at the same time. The state, in developing the new Chapter 49 regulations, expects co-teaching to take place.
“To me, co-teaching was a thought, an idea. But it’s evolved into so much more all of these years,” Keller said. “I can see a lot of things coming through the state, one is a definite push for inclusion and for co-teaching to be more than just one teacher and one coach.”
Campbell has worked in several inclusive classrooms. She doesn’t have a social studies background, but she has taught alongside a history teacher to help improve the reading skills of the special education students in that class. In turn, she said, it helps all students.
But even with her experience, Campbell said she too enrolled in EPIC to make sure her strategies “were as up to date as possible” and to better learn how to teach students with very specific disabilities.
“We have to be very deliberate and very mindful of including kids and making accommodations for different kinds of learners,” she said. “... When you make those accommodations, it’s good for the general education learners as well.”
According to the state Department of Education, three of every 20 students have a disability or are still learning English. And 96 percent of students with a disability have at least some of their education provided by a regular education teacher.
“All teachers have interaction with students in special education,” Department of Education spokeswoman Leah Harris said. “And even though they are not certified in special education, regular teachers still need to know the unique characteristics of special education so they are better able to instruct those students.”
Special education needs soar
Dena Pauling Monday, Aug. 04, 2008
EDUCATION: Certification to help Pa. teachers with changing classrooms
Pennsylvania expects children with special needs to be taught in the same classrooms as their peers whenever possible — not segregated in special rooms for the entire school day.
This “least-restrictive environment” approach toward special education has been around for years. But with about 70,000 more children enrolled in special education statewide than just a decade ago, the State Board of Education has made sweeping changes to ensure that approach is being followed.
All newly certified teachers — regardless of whether they teach history, physics, art or elementary education — will be required to have extra training in special education. And those who do pursue special education certifications must have a second certification to achieve what is known as “highly qualified status” to be able to better assist other teachers.
Though the new requirements won’t begin to kick in for another three years, Kelly Watson hopes students such as her daughter, who has autism and bipolar disorder, can get help.
“We have struggled,” she said. “Our daughter has been in four different schools and home-schooled.”
Watson, who lives in the Philipsburg area, said schools just aren’t equipped to know how
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to handle children with special needs. Too often, children with Down syndrome and autism, for example, are just “lumped together” in the same special education classrooms for extended periods of time, she said.
“Nobody seems trained well enough to be able to handle her situation, and that’s very frustrating for us,” she said. “We just want to get her educated, and we can’t seem to do that.”
The push behind the changes in teacher certification initially came from “parents coming forward and saying our kids are not getting the services they need in general education classrooms,” said David McNaughton, an associate professor in Penn State’s department of educational and school psychology and special education.
Part of the reason could be traced to the sheer volume of children now being identified with special needs. Deneen Keller, a Penns Valley special education teacher, and Ellen Campbell, a State College English teacher and reading specialist, say they see more children with special circumstances each year.
Autism, in particular, Keller said, “has grown phenomenally.”
State Department of Education statistics prove those assumptions. While total enrollment has remained flat both statewide and locally, the number of children in special education has risen significantly during the past 10 to 15 years.
Excluding gifted and pre-school- aged children, there were 272,255 students enrolled in special education statewide in 2006-07, up from 208,421 in 1990-91. That’s a 30.6 percent increase.
In the Central Intermediate Unit 10, which includes school districts in Centre and Clearfield counties, there were 4,304 students enrolled in special education in 2006-07 — almost 1,000 more than in 1990-91.
In anticipation of the upcoming requirements, colleges and universities are revamping their educational programs to prepare students and retrain teachers.
“Things are just constantly changing,” said Keller, who has taught special education for 17 years. “And for me, it brings me up to speed on what is going on statewide.”
Keller is among those enrolled in Penn State’s new EPIC program, short for Evidence- Based Practices for Inclusive Classrooms and Differentiating Instruction. McNaughton is one of the instructors.
The courses are designed to help teachers learn strategies they can use to help children with all kinds of specific physical and behavioral issues including autism, blindness, attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder and mental retardation.
Keller said she’s seen a “definite push” toward the strategy of co-teaching. Two teachers, one of whom could be certified in special education, work in the same classroom at the same time. The state, in developing the new Chapter 49 regulations, expects co-teaching to take place.
“To me, co-teaching was a thought, an idea. But it’s evolved into so much more all of these years,” Keller said. “I can see a lot of things coming through the state, one is a definite push for inclusion and for co-teaching to be more than just one teacher and one coach.”
Campbell has worked in several inclusive classrooms. She doesn’t have a social studies background, but she has taught alongside a history teacher to help improve the reading skills of the special education students in that class. In turn, she said, it helps all students.
But even with her experience, Campbell said she too enrolled in EPIC to make sure her strategies “were as up to date as possible” and to better learn how to teach students with very specific disabilities.
“We have to be very deliberate and very mindful of including kids and making accommodations for different kinds of learners,” she said. “... When you make those accommodations, it’s good for the general education learners as well.”
According to the state Department of Education, three of every 20 students have a disability or are still learning English. And 96 percent of students with a disability have at least some of their education provided by a regular education teacher.
“All teachers have interaction with students in special education,” Department of Education spokeswoman Leah Harris said. “And even though they are not certified in special education, regular teachers still need to know the unique characteristics of special education so they are better able to instruct those students.”
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