From the Inquirer.
Chairman of Pa. education board resigns
MARTHA RAFFAELE The Associated Press Posted on Wed, Jul. 23, 2008
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The chairman of the State Board of Education said Wednesday he is leaving the board after being asked by Gov. Ed Rendell to give up his leadership post.
Karl Girton's resignation, effective Aug. 1, follows months of criticism of a board proposal that Pennsylvania students pass a series of tests before they can graduate high school. The 22-member board sets state education policy and regulations for K-12 public schools and higher education.
But Girton and a Rendell spokesman said the resignation was unrelated to controversy over the testing proposal, an initiative championed by Girton and the administration.
Girton, who has served on the board since 1992, said he spoke Friday by telephone with Rendell, who asked him to step down as chairman but stay on the board until the governor leaves office in 2011. After taking the weekend to think it over, Girton decided to leave the board altogether.
"There are no hard feelings," Girton said. "I just think it's in the best interest of the board that I decline his invitation to remain on the board. ... I don't think I would have been effective."
The governor felt the time was right to appoint a new chairman, given the recent turnover on the board, Rendell's spokesman Chuck Ardo said Wednesday.
"I don't think anybody is disappointed with his performance," Ardo said.
Seventeen of the board's members are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. Eight new board members were confirmed to fill vacancies in April , the largest number of new members since Rendell took office, Ardo said.
Rendell waited to raise the issue of new board leadership with Girton because the administration was focused on completing the 2008-09 state budget and didn't have time to consider other issues, Ardo said.
Girton, a partner with a management services company in Millville, said in a letter he sent Tuesday to Rendell that his resignation "will clear the board for another nominee and the opportunity for the entire board to more effectively coalesce around the new chair."
The board's plan to adopt new graduation requirements stalled this year amid opposition from many lawmakers, school board members and educators who said the proposed rules would undermine the policymaking authority of local school boards.
The board envisioned creating 10 subject-specific final high school exams, and students would have to pass six in order to graduate, starting with the class of 2014. Failing students could be retested.
Among the most vocal opponents of the plan was the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union. Association spokesman Wythe Keever said the union did not put any pressure on Rendell to remove Girton from his leadership post.
In an effort to win broader support for the idea, the state Education Department is planning to develop tests that school districts can administer voluntarily, starting in the 2009-10 school year.
Girton served as chairman of the board's council of basic education, which oversees K-12 regulations and policy, from 1999 until he was appointed chairman of the full board by then-Gov. Mark S. Schweiker in 2002.
During his tenure, Girton presided over updates of the state's academic standards and the adoption of new early-childhood education standards, among other policy changes.
Girton is a former Millville Area School Board member and former director of the Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, a regional education agency, in Snyder County.
Showing posts with label Philadelphia Inquirer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philadelphia Inquirer. Show all posts
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Changes in Philly
The new superintendent in Philadelphia has started streamlining the behemoth district. "We're in the business of education here, which means that we need to think strategically and thoughtfully about how we use taxpayer dollars," [Superintendent Ackerman] said. I'm sure these words warmed the cold Grinch-like heart of the Emperor, but before we set off to feasting in Who-ville, there's another little detail.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which represents most of the affected coaches, said he was not surprised by the shake-up. "This is the kind of thing that happens each time a superintendent takes over," Jordan said. "It's not unusual. We have to wait and see what Dr. Ackerman's plan is."
A PLAN!! A public, open for all to see, real-life plan! What a quaint notion. Ackerman needs to get a grip, and contact the Emperor. He can do to Philly what he's doing to Morrisville.
Phila. School District lays off 200
Posted on Wed, Jul. 2, 2008
By Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writer
Call it Arlene Ackerman's opening salvo.
More than 200 Philadelphia School District staffers received layoff notices this week, a move the new schools chief hopes will begin to de-centralize the district and move resources into classrooms.
The employees were all academic coaches, mostly veteran educators who supported teachers in a variety of roles, from technology to mentoring new teachers.
The 218 coaches will be eligible to apply for other jobs within the district, and Ackerman said she did not expect anyone to be laid off completely. The notices come one month into Ackerman's tenure, as she begins to address "incoherency" in the district.
Similar shake-ups will happen in other departments throughout the summer, said Ackerman, who previously ran the Washington and San Francisco school systems.
"This is not the only resource that I'm going to take a look at," Ackerman said. "It's just the beginning."
The academic-coach position was too nebulous, a catch-all, and not all coaches were based in schools, said Ackerman, whose background is in instruction. Some coaches worked 10 months a year, some worked 12, and there was no common training.
"When I asked what these coaches do, people would sort of shrug their shoulders and say, 'Well, I don't know.' We need to be more intentional in terms of how we use those coaches," Ackerman said.
She called the district "top-heavy and with no real rhyme or reason for why it's organized the way it is" and said that she wants "new job descriptions that clearly define what the coaches are doing, how they're going to be trained, and what kind of measurable outcomes we expect."
And though all coaches will be invited to re-apply for a yet-to-be determined replacement position, which could be advertised in a week, there will be fewer coaching spots in the future.
"We're reducing the number significantly, as we will be reducing the size of central office again in terms of other positions," Ackerman said. She has not yet figured out how many coaches she will need, she said.
When the certified letter came to her home Monday, Tara Ardary, who has 14 years in the district, was stunned. She thought her job as a school-growth coordinator - a type of coach - at Edison High might change, but never dreamed it would be eliminated.
"School is out of session, and now everyone's eliminated? The letter said we were demoted, and now we have nobody to talk to," said Ardary, whose job includes helping teachers focus instruction and teaching them how to interpret data.
Now she's not sure if she should wait or apply for a classroom job.
Cyvi Levin has worked in the district for 20 years and been a coach for five years. She's a school-growth coordinator based at Frankford High and worries that a reduced number of coaches will hurt schools.
"I don't know if the students of Philadelphia are going to be best served by providing their teachers with fewer supports," Levin said.
Ackerman said that although the move was not made to cut costs, the district does have a deficit - currently about $5 million in a $2.3 billion budget - and resources will be carefully monitored.
"We're in the business of education here, which means that we need to think strategically and thoughtfully about how we use taxpayer dollars," she said.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which represents most of the affected coaches, said he was not surprised by the shake-up.
"This is the kind of thing that happens each time a superintendent takes over," Jordan said. "It's not unusual. We have to wait and see what Dr. Ackerman's plan is."
Though Ackerman wants to streamline the central administration, she will also move to re-open two regional offices - Southwest and Central East - that had previously been shuttered, and to create new regional offices for early-childhood education and alternative schools, she said.
"It seems to me that we need to provide services to parents where they live," Ackerman said. "Plus, I'm trying to bring everything together so that we have no people working in isolation."
The moves come amid many changes at the district. Interim chief academic officer Cassandra Jones left the district Monday, and her job will be temporarily filled by Ackerman herself. LaVonne Sheffield, the well-respected chief accountability officer, recently left for New Orleans, and top finance and operating positions will also be turning over.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which represents most of the affected coaches, said he was not surprised by the shake-up. "This is the kind of thing that happens each time a superintendent takes over," Jordan said. "It's not unusual. We have to wait and see what Dr. Ackerman's plan is."
A PLAN!! A public, open for all to see, real-life plan! What a quaint notion. Ackerman needs to get a grip, and contact the Emperor. He can do to Philly what he's doing to Morrisville.
Phila. School District lays off 200
Posted on Wed, Jul. 2, 2008
By Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writer
Call it Arlene Ackerman's opening salvo.
More than 200 Philadelphia School District staffers received layoff notices this week, a move the new schools chief hopes will begin to de-centralize the district and move resources into classrooms.
The employees were all academic coaches, mostly veteran educators who supported teachers in a variety of roles, from technology to mentoring new teachers.
The 218 coaches will be eligible to apply for other jobs within the district, and Ackerman said she did not expect anyone to be laid off completely. The notices come one month into Ackerman's tenure, as she begins to address "incoherency" in the district.
Similar shake-ups will happen in other departments throughout the summer, said Ackerman, who previously ran the Washington and San Francisco school systems.
"This is not the only resource that I'm going to take a look at," Ackerman said. "It's just the beginning."
The academic-coach position was too nebulous, a catch-all, and not all coaches were based in schools, said Ackerman, whose background is in instruction. Some coaches worked 10 months a year, some worked 12, and there was no common training.
"When I asked what these coaches do, people would sort of shrug their shoulders and say, 'Well, I don't know.' We need to be more intentional in terms of how we use those coaches," Ackerman said.
She called the district "top-heavy and with no real rhyme or reason for why it's organized the way it is" and said that she wants "new job descriptions that clearly define what the coaches are doing, how they're going to be trained, and what kind of measurable outcomes we expect."
And though all coaches will be invited to re-apply for a yet-to-be determined replacement position, which could be advertised in a week, there will be fewer coaching spots in the future.
"We're reducing the number significantly, as we will be reducing the size of central office again in terms of other positions," Ackerman said. She has not yet figured out how many coaches she will need, she said.
When the certified letter came to her home Monday, Tara Ardary, who has 14 years in the district, was stunned. She thought her job as a school-growth coordinator - a type of coach - at Edison High might change, but never dreamed it would be eliminated.
"School is out of session, and now everyone's eliminated? The letter said we were demoted, and now we have nobody to talk to," said Ardary, whose job includes helping teachers focus instruction and teaching them how to interpret data.
Now she's not sure if she should wait or apply for a classroom job.
Cyvi Levin has worked in the district for 20 years and been a coach for five years. She's a school-growth coordinator based at Frankford High and worries that a reduced number of coaches will hurt schools.
"I don't know if the students of Philadelphia are going to be best served by providing their teachers with fewer supports," Levin said.
Ackerman said that although the move was not made to cut costs, the district does have a deficit - currently about $5 million in a $2.3 billion budget - and resources will be carefully monitored.
"We're in the business of education here, which means that we need to think strategically and thoughtfully about how we use taxpayer dollars," she said.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which represents most of the affected coaches, said he was not surprised by the shake-up.
"This is the kind of thing that happens each time a superintendent takes over," Jordan said. "It's not unusual. We have to wait and see what Dr. Ackerman's plan is."
Though Ackerman wants to streamline the central administration, she will also move to re-open two regional offices - Southwest and Central East - that had previously been shuttered, and to create new regional offices for early-childhood education and alternative schools, she said.
"It seems to me that we need to provide services to parents where they live," Ackerman said. "Plus, I'm trying to bring everything together so that we have no people working in isolation."
The moves come amid many changes at the district. Interim chief academic officer Cassandra Jones left the district Monday, and her job will be temporarily filled by Ackerman herself. LaVonne Sheffield, the well-respected chief accountability officer, recently left for New Orleans, and top finance and operating positions will also be turning over.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Pennsylvania Taxation and Assessment Update
The Inquirer had part one of this series last week and it was mentioned in this post. Part 2 today looks at the city of Philadelphia.
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Kimberton Followup
Here's a follow up from the Inquirer on the story about the Kimberton, PA school on a Superfund site. Ain't gonna happen...
Board scraps proposed school site
By Kathleen Brady Shea
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Phoenixville Area school board last night scrapped a two-year-old plan to locate an elementary school next to a Superfund site - a proposal that provoked intense controversy in recent weeks.
Before the vote, about a dozen residents, including a cancer survivor, urged the board not to put the district's children at risk.
"I'm a board-certified toxicologist, but more importantly, I'm a parent," said Conney W. Berger Jr. "There is no way you can get rid of all risk . . . however, this is an absolute no."
Donna Jackson, a parent, said the fact that the district needed "testing, experts, reports and an environmental lawyer" suggested the plan was fraught with peril.
In the end, the citizens' concerns trumped the district's scientific data, which had sanctioned the site near the intersection of Cold Stream Road and Route 113. The board voted, 6-2, to abandon the project, receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 100.
Retiring Superintendent David Noyes, who also received a standing ovation for his seven years of service, said after the vote that the next administration would have to find a way to recover almost $4 million.
Noyes said that the land was purchased for $1.85 million in 2005 and that money had been spent on architectural and environmental studies.
"All the experts said it was safe, but emotion took over," Noyes said after the vote.
Many of the opponents said they learned of the project in the last month and were appalled.
Fred Romano, a parent and physician, said he attended the last board meeting and was challenged for not coming forward sooner.
"Apparently we've been in the dark," he said, adding that he collected 375 signatures in four days from citizens who shared his fears.
After the vote, he called the $4 million cost to taxpayers "a bitter pill to swallow," but felt "it was worth it."
Before the meeting, Romano and a dozen other members of the newly formed Coalition of Concerned Citizens held a news conference in front of Phoenixville Area High School to voice their opposition to the project.
Paul Gottlieb, a Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, said the EPA cited risk but called it "reasonable," which he found unacceptable. "No unnecessary risk is reasonable, especially when there are other properties," he said.
The 45-acre Superfund site - across the street from the proposed school - was used previously for manufacturing resin, textile and asphalt products. The former owner, Ciba-Geigy Corp., now Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., disposed of residue in eight lagoons on the property.
An October letter from a Ciba attorney labeled the district's plans for the school "ill-advised," but Ron Miller, the district's chief of operations, said the company ignored a request to provide specifics.
Donna Jakubowski, a Ciba spokeswoman, did not return repeated telephone calls.
In 2002, Ciba and two other firms admitted no liability in a confidential settlement regarding a higher-than-usual rate of childhood cancer in Toms River, N.J., home of two Superfund sites.
Board scraps proposed school site
By Kathleen Brady Shea
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Phoenixville Area school board last night scrapped a two-year-old plan to locate an elementary school next to a Superfund site - a proposal that provoked intense controversy in recent weeks.
Before the vote, about a dozen residents, including a cancer survivor, urged the board not to put the district's children at risk.
"I'm a board-certified toxicologist, but more importantly, I'm a parent," said Conney W. Berger Jr. "There is no way you can get rid of all risk . . . however, this is an absolute no."
Donna Jackson, a parent, said the fact that the district needed "testing, experts, reports and an environmental lawyer" suggested the plan was fraught with peril.
In the end, the citizens' concerns trumped the district's scientific data, which had sanctioned the site near the intersection of Cold Stream Road and Route 113. The board voted, 6-2, to abandon the project, receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 100.
Retiring Superintendent David Noyes, who also received a standing ovation for his seven years of service, said after the vote that the next administration would have to find a way to recover almost $4 million.
Noyes said that the land was purchased for $1.85 million in 2005 and that money had been spent on architectural and environmental studies.
"All the experts said it was safe, but emotion took over," Noyes said after the vote.
Many of the opponents said they learned of the project in the last month and were appalled.
Fred Romano, a parent and physician, said he attended the last board meeting and was challenged for not coming forward sooner.
"Apparently we've been in the dark," he said, adding that he collected 375 signatures in four days from citizens who shared his fears.
After the vote, he called the $4 million cost to taxpayers "a bitter pill to swallow," but felt "it was worth it."
Before the meeting, Romano and a dozen other members of the newly formed Coalition of Concerned Citizens held a news conference in front of Phoenixville Area High School to voice their opposition to the project.
Paul Gottlieb, a Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, said the EPA cited risk but called it "reasonable," which he found unacceptable. "No unnecessary risk is reasonable, especially when there are other properties," he said.
The 45-acre Superfund site - across the street from the proposed school - was used previously for manufacturing resin, textile and asphalt products. The former owner, Ciba-Geigy Corp., now Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., disposed of residue in eight lagoons on the property.
An October letter from a Ciba attorney labeled the district's plans for the school "ill-advised," but Ron Miller, the district's chief of operations, said the company ignored a request to provide specifics.
Donna Jakubowski, a Ciba spokeswoman, did not return repeated telephone calls.
In 2002, Ciba and two other firms admitted no liability in a confidential settlement regarding a higher-than-usual rate of childhood cancer in Toms River, N.J., home of two Superfund sites.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
How Pennsylvania Pays for Education
Here's a great article from the Inquirer taking a look at the schools funding problem in Pennsylvania.
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Rendell Budget Plan
While the merry maulers of Morrisville are busy dismantling the school system, let's take out a moment to imagine how we could lower our taxes AND keep this a K-12 district. Answer: Change the funding formula.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
School Funding Fight
Today the BCCT prints an editorial on the school funding crisis in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized on the same plan back on May 4.
There's plenty to see at the PDE's website covering the 2008-2009 budget proposals.
What are the Emperor and his accomplices constructively doing about school funding? Are they pressuring the Rendell Administration? Lobbying our senator and state representative? Have they passed any resolutions declaring support or even opposition to this plan and sent the resolution to Harrisburg?
I'm asking because of the Allentown Morning Call (SW's favorite newspaper, don't forget) published an article April 11 that pointed out the problem of politicians: They don't wanna do nothin'. Once they commissioned the study that showed Pennsylvania schools are underfunded, they were left holding a political hot potato. So they are going to study the study and kill it with time and studied indifference.
We need to contact our representatives in Harrisburg. So do our elected school board members: clearly, vocally, and publicly.
Or are they just content with publicly whining about how unfair the current funding plan is and not following through with the hard work of making proposals become reality?
While I think about it, someone got up at a recent school board meeting and said, "Someone needs to do something" about the tax situation. Well, DUH. Talk about a stroke of the blinding obvious.
First off, I remember very well who said that from the audience. Now it's time to pay up. Congratulations! YOU, sir, are that someone. Introduce a resolution in the borough council supporting this tax plan. Get one introduced in the school board. Pass them both unanimously and present them tied with red ribbons and bows to Governor Rendell, Senator McIlhenney, and Representative Galloway.
We the public are keeping you accountable as local officeholders so you can keep our state officials accountable. Step up to the plate. Are you going to hit, or just take four pitches and hope for a walk? And if you can't or won't do it, let's all step up to the microphone at Union St and shout "Shame on You!"
Pay now, or pay later: School funding formula needs updating.
We go on and on about equal opportunity in this country. It’s ingrained in our thinking. Unfortunately, we don’t practice what we preach. Consider education.
Because Pennsylvania schools are largely funded with property taxes, wealthy school districts provide more and better educational opportunities than lowincome districts. A lot more. Try an annual expenditure of $21,399 per student in Lower Merion vs. $9,727 in Upper Darby.
No wonder there are vast differences in test scores and graduation rates around the state.
Harrisburg is supposed to even out things via a funding formula for rationing out state education money. But the formula is woefully out of date and is not getting the job done.
The governor’s proposed education budget, now under consideration by state lawmakers, proposes a new formula based on the Legislature’s own “Costing-Out Study.” Among the study’s findings was this shocker: Of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts, 474 are underfunded. It also found that the state picks up just more than one-third of the cost of public education vs. the national average of nearly 50 percent.
We urge lawmakers to approve the governor’s updated funding formula.
If education is the key to success, every child deserves an “equal” opportunity to succeed.
The state can pay now and reap the benefits of its educated citizens’ success, or pay later to rescue those who fail.
The Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized on the same plan back on May 4.
School Funding: A fairer plan
It's past time for Pennsylvania to enact a new formula to fund public schools.
The legislature should approve Gov. Rendell's plan to change how state aid is allocated and boost education funding by $291 million.
It's not the complete funding overhaul that many education advocates want, but it puts the state on the right course.
The six-year plan would increase the state's share of education costs from the current 37 percent - among the lowest in the country - to about 44 percent.
Taxpayers should be relieved to know that the proposal calls for no broad-based tax increases.
The plan would increase state funding by 6 percent above the nearly $5 billion currently allocated to public schools. Similar annual increases would occur until Rendell leaves office in 2011.
In the biggest change, Rendell wants to distribute the new aid based on a formula that gives more money to the neediest districts - those with the largest numbers of students living in poverty and students learning English as a second language.
New Jersey began using a similar approach this year. It makes sense, given that it does cost more to educate students with special needs.
Last year's "costing out" study commissioned by the legislature recommended the new formula. The study also concluded that Pennsylvania public schools are underfunded by $4.38 billion.
Some districts may remain underfunded under Rendell's plan, but his proposed increases will be an improvement, and they will help bridge the spending disparities between the state's poor and wealthy districts.
For example, Lower Merion spends more than $21,000 per student, while Upper Darby spends $9,889. Getting a high-quality public education shouldn't depend on where you live.
Under the governor's formula, Upper Darby would get an increase of $4.9 million, or 22.4 percent, the largest percentage jump in the state.
Philadelphia, the state's largest district and one of the poorest, would get an additional $86 million, a 9.6 percent increase. That money is sorely needed; district officials are projecting at least a $39 million deficit.
Even the most affluent districts in the state would receive at least a 1.5 percent increase in aid. Rendell's plan also increases spending for special education, pre-kindergarten and charter school tuition reimbursements.
House Republicans argue that money alone won't fix public education. They're right, but it is absolutely essential for the many Pennsylvania districts with needs that truly require more spending.
Greater accountability is essential, too. One need only look at the Chester Upland district, taken over by the state years ago, to see an example of a lack of adequate oversight in the past.
But neither does accountability alone complete the equation that produces good schools.
Too many school districts have been underfunded by the state for too long, placing an unfair burden on local property taxpayers who must make up the difference. The governor's new funding formula should be approved.
Allentown Morning Call
Rendell calls legislators' bluff on school funds April 11, 2008
Last year, state lawmakers received the results of a study they had authorized to find out what it should cost to achieve a quality education in public school. Pennsylvania and Congress have demanded that schools do a better job, that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. But no one ever determined what doing that would cost.
It turned out that providing a quality education isn't cheap. And, it didn't really surprise many that the Costing-Out Study found that Pennsylvania isn't spending enough -- in either state or local dollars in the vast majority of school districts -- to get the job done. The real cost is about $4 billion more than the state currently spends.
This is all relevant because after everyone's attention shifts from the state's April 22 presidential primary, state lawmakers will refocus on the task of approving a state budget by June 30. This year, Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed making a $2.6 billion, six-year commitment to live up to the findings of the Costing-Out Study.
Gov. Rendell admits he was surprised lawmakers ever commissioned the report. It's implications are political dynamite. For years, Pennsylvanians have suspected that state government wasn't adequately funding education. For years, Pennsylvanians have complained about their local school property taxes going up every budget cycle. The report documented this reality, and in doing so, tossed the responsibility about doing something about it back onto lawmakers.
But lawmakers did what they often do when they're not sure what to do. They decided to study the study. Right after the report was released last fall, state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, proposed forming a commission to draft a new public education funding formula. It has languished in the Senate Education Committee ever since. In January, the House overwhelmingly approved formation of such a panel. Doing so will ultimately be necessary. However, delaying action until lawmakers study the implications of the Costing-Out Study just pushes off the job of helping public schools do a better job for at least another year. Then, 2014 will be one year closer.
Give Gov. Rendell credit for calling the General Assembly's bluff with his proposed education budget. He has ventured a first step. His approach isn't perfect and doesn't completely close the so-called ''adequacy gap'' between what school districts spend and what they should be spending. But, it has been embraced, with some recommendations, by 26 groups of educators and education advocates allied in the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign. As lawmakers begin budget talks, they should heed the campaign's advice.
For instance, the Governor's plan would increase the state subsidy for 137 districts beyond a 4.4 percent inflation index. But all of those districts would have the added paperwork burden of proving to the Department of Education that 80 percent of the additional subsidy would go to programs to improve student performance. But, only 48 of those districts aren't meeting their Annual Yearly Progress goals. The campaign suggests limiting the extra accountability measures to just those districts.
Second, the campaign recommends basing state subsidies mostly on a district's wealth rather than its tax effort. Doing so would make greater strides to correcting the economic disparities between rich and poor districts.
Third, the campaign recommends that all districts at least receive a 2 percent increase in their state subsidy -- something that's often called ''hold harmless.'' Gov. Rendell has proposed a 1.5 percent minimum increase. However, under the requirements of Act 1, all 501 school districts have already built an expected 2 percent increase into their budgets. A 2 percent minimum increase is just basic fairness.
Finally, the campaign recommends at least talking about doing a better job funding special education, one of public education's fastest increasing costs. While the federal government has failed to live up to its obligations on special education, school districts still are mandated to provide programs to ever-increasing numbers of students.
All of these recommendations deserve the General Assembly's conscientious consideration.
There's plenty to see at the PDE's website covering the 2008-2009 budget proposals.
What are the Emperor and his accomplices constructively doing about school funding? Are they pressuring the Rendell Administration? Lobbying our senator and state representative? Have they passed any resolutions declaring support or even opposition to this plan and sent the resolution to Harrisburg?
I'm asking because of the Allentown Morning Call (SW's favorite newspaper, don't forget) published an article April 11 that pointed out the problem of politicians: They don't wanna do nothin'. Once they commissioned the study that showed Pennsylvania schools are underfunded, they were left holding a political hot potato. So they are going to study the study and kill it with time and studied indifference.
We need to contact our representatives in Harrisburg. So do our elected school board members: clearly, vocally, and publicly.
Or are they just content with publicly whining about how unfair the current funding plan is and not following through with the hard work of making proposals become reality?
While I think about it, someone got up at a recent school board meeting and said, "Someone needs to do something" about the tax situation. Well, DUH. Talk about a stroke of the blinding obvious.
First off, I remember very well who said that from the audience. Now it's time to pay up. Congratulations! YOU, sir, are that someone. Introduce a resolution in the borough council supporting this tax plan. Get one introduced in the school board. Pass them both unanimously and present them tied with red ribbons and bows to Governor Rendell, Senator McIlhenney, and Representative Galloway.
We the public are keeping you accountable as local officeholders so you can keep our state officials accountable. Step up to the plate. Are you going to hit, or just take four pitches and hope for a walk? And if you can't or won't do it, let's all step up to the microphone at Union St and shout "Shame on You!"
Pay now, or pay later: School funding formula needs updating.
We go on and on about equal opportunity in this country. It’s ingrained in our thinking. Unfortunately, we don’t practice what we preach. Consider education.
Because Pennsylvania schools are largely funded with property taxes, wealthy school districts provide more and better educational opportunities than lowincome districts. A lot more. Try an annual expenditure of $21,399 per student in Lower Merion vs. $9,727 in Upper Darby.
No wonder there are vast differences in test scores and graduation rates around the state.
Harrisburg is supposed to even out things via a funding formula for rationing out state education money. But the formula is woefully out of date and is not getting the job done.
The governor’s proposed education budget, now under consideration by state lawmakers, proposes a new formula based on the Legislature’s own “Costing-Out Study.” Among the study’s findings was this shocker: Of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts, 474 are underfunded. It also found that the state picks up just more than one-third of the cost of public education vs. the national average of nearly 50 percent.
We urge lawmakers to approve the governor’s updated funding formula.
If education is the key to success, every child deserves an “equal” opportunity to succeed.
The state can pay now and reap the benefits of its educated citizens’ success, or pay later to rescue those who fail.
The Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized on the same plan back on May 4.
School Funding: A fairer plan
It's past time for Pennsylvania to enact a new formula to fund public schools.
The legislature should approve Gov. Rendell's plan to change how state aid is allocated and boost education funding by $291 million.
It's not the complete funding overhaul that many education advocates want, but it puts the state on the right course.
The six-year plan would increase the state's share of education costs from the current 37 percent - among the lowest in the country - to about 44 percent.
Taxpayers should be relieved to know that the proposal calls for no broad-based tax increases.
The plan would increase state funding by 6 percent above the nearly $5 billion currently allocated to public schools. Similar annual increases would occur until Rendell leaves office in 2011.
In the biggest change, Rendell wants to distribute the new aid based on a formula that gives more money to the neediest districts - those with the largest numbers of students living in poverty and students learning English as a second language.
New Jersey began using a similar approach this year. It makes sense, given that it does cost more to educate students with special needs.
Last year's "costing out" study commissioned by the legislature recommended the new formula. The study also concluded that Pennsylvania public schools are underfunded by $4.38 billion.
Some districts may remain underfunded under Rendell's plan, but his proposed increases will be an improvement, and they will help bridge the spending disparities between the state's poor and wealthy districts.
For example, Lower Merion spends more than $21,000 per student, while Upper Darby spends $9,889. Getting a high-quality public education shouldn't depend on where you live.
Under the governor's formula, Upper Darby would get an increase of $4.9 million, or 22.4 percent, the largest percentage jump in the state.
Philadelphia, the state's largest district and one of the poorest, would get an additional $86 million, a 9.6 percent increase. That money is sorely needed; district officials are projecting at least a $39 million deficit.
Even the most affluent districts in the state would receive at least a 1.5 percent increase in aid. Rendell's plan also increases spending for special education, pre-kindergarten and charter school tuition reimbursements.
House Republicans argue that money alone won't fix public education. They're right, but it is absolutely essential for the many Pennsylvania districts with needs that truly require more spending.
Greater accountability is essential, too. One need only look at the Chester Upland district, taken over by the state years ago, to see an example of a lack of adequate oversight in the past.
But neither does accountability alone complete the equation that produces good schools.
Too many school districts have been underfunded by the state for too long, placing an unfair burden on local property taxpayers who must make up the difference. The governor's new funding formula should be approved.
Allentown Morning Call
Rendell calls legislators' bluff on school funds April 11, 2008
Last year, state lawmakers received the results of a study they had authorized to find out what it should cost to achieve a quality education in public school. Pennsylvania and Congress have demanded that schools do a better job, that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. But no one ever determined what doing that would cost.
It turned out that providing a quality education isn't cheap. And, it didn't really surprise many that the Costing-Out Study found that Pennsylvania isn't spending enough -- in either state or local dollars in the vast majority of school districts -- to get the job done. The real cost is about $4 billion more than the state currently spends.
This is all relevant because after everyone's attention shifts from the state's April 22 presidential primary, state lawmakers will refocus on the task of approving a state budget by June 30. This year, Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed making a $2.6 billion, six-year commitment to live up to the findings of the Costing-Out Study.
Gov. Rendell admits he was surprised lawmakers ever commissioned the report. It's implications are political dynamite. For years, Pennsylvanians have suspected that state government wasn't adequately funding education. For years, Pennsylvanians have complained about their local school property taxes going up every budget cycle. The report documented this reality, and in doing so, tossed the responsibility about doing something about it back onto lawmakers.
But lawmakers did what they often do when they're not sure what to do. They decided to study the study. Right after the report was released last fall, state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, proposed forming a commission to draft a new public education funding formula. It has languished in the Senate Education Committee ever since. In January, the House overwhelmingly approved formation of such a panel. Doing so will ultimately be necessary. However, delaying action until lawmakers study the implications of the Costing-Out Study just pushes off the job of helping public schools do a better job for at least another year. Then, 2014 will be one year closer.
Give Gov. Rendell credit for calling the General Assembly's bluff with his proposed education budget. He has ventured a first step. His approach isn't perfect and doesn't completely close the so-called ''adequacy gap'' between what school districts spend and what they should be spending. But, it has been embraced, with some recommendations, by 26 groups of educators and education advocates allied in the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign. As lawmakers begin budget talks, they should heed the campaign's advice.
For instance, the Governor's plan would increase the state subsidy for 137 districts beyond a 4.4 percent inflation index. But all of those districts would have the added paperwork burden of proving to the Department of Education that 80 percent of the additional subsidy would go to programs to improve student performance. But, only 48 of those districts aren't meeting their Annual Yearly Progress goals. The campaign suggests limiting the extra accountability measures to just those districts.
Second, the campaign recommends basing state subsidies mostly on a district's wealth rather than its tax effort. Doing so would make greater strides to correcting the economic disparities between rich and poor districts.
Third, the campaign recommends that all districts at least receive a 2 percent increase in their state subsidy -- something that's often called ''hold harmless.'' Gov. Rendell has proposed a 1.5 percent minimum increase. However, under the requirements of Act 1, all 501 school districts have already built an expected 2 percent increase into their budgets. A 2 percent minimum increase is just basic fairness.
Finally, the campaign recommends at least talking about doing a better job funding special education, one of public education's fastest increasing costs. While the federal government has failed to live up to its obligations on special education, school districts still are mandated to provide programs to ever-increasing numbers of students.
All of these recommendations deserve the General Assembly's conscientious consideration.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Inquirer Education Scorecard 2008
Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer published the regional report card for the schools. Take a look and let us know what parts of the report made you sit up and take notice.
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