Countdown to April 29 to PERMANENTLY close M. R. Reiter. Ask the board to see the 6 point plan.
Showing posts with label Rendell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rendell. Show all posts

Friday, December 26, 2008

Congratulations to Dr. Yonson

Congratulations to our own Dr. Elizabeth Hammond Yonson upon her appointment by Gov. Rendell to the Pennsylvania Early Learning Council.

Bucks County, Montgomery County residents appointed
Posted in Community, News on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm by Intelligencer editor Steve Smith

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell today announced the appointments of two area residents to the Pennsylvania Early Learning Council: Elizabeth Hammond Yonson, Ed.D., of Warrington, and Pamela Schuessler of Glenside.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Pennsylvania State 2008-09 Budget

Thanks to jon for the link. Is there anyone out there "in the know" who might be able to let us know why we were not eligible for more?

Jon has left a new comment on your post "Pennsylvania Budget Deal":

There's an article in today's Phila. Inquirer at this link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/24058084.html


It has an accompanying graphic at this link:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/gallery/24050274.html

Anyway, the graphic lays out state education funding increases for each district in the 5-county Phila. metro area, based on the recent PA budget deal.

What I learned from this is:

1. Morrisville gets the minimum 3% funding boost;
2. The boost is only in the state's "basic education funding", which for M'ville is only on the order of $2.9-3.0 million, not $5.45 million.

So, PA's funding of M'ville basic ed goes from $2,882,794 in 2007-08 to $2,969,278 in 2008-09, an increase of $86,484. This equates to only about $26 for the home assessed at the M'ville average of $18,000.

Not that much really.


Pa. support for schools jumps

By Dan Hardy Posted on Tue, Jul. 8, 2008

Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburban school districts will share $82.6 million in new basic education funding next school year under the state budget signed Friday by Gov. Rendell.

The increase in basic education funding represents the largest dollar increase in the program since 1991.

"Even though we are in an economic slowdown, this was our number-one issue this year," said Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Philadelphia), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Philadelphia will get about $50.8 million, a 5.8 percent basic subsidy hike. Other districts will receive increases based on need and how highly taxed they are, ranging from $4.9 million for Upper Darby in Delaware County, a 22.4 percent increase, to $22,900 for Jenkintown in Montgomery County, or 3 percent.

Of the 64 school districts that make up Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs, 37 will get the minimum 3 percent increase.

Rendell had initially proposed minimum increases of only 1.5 percent for the wealthiest districts, but unhappy Republicans in the legislature added $17 million to the budget to boost everyone's funding by at least 3 percent.

Overall, the basic education subsidy will increase by $275 million statewide, or 5.5 percent. The subsidy formula represents the largest single item in kindergarten-through-12th-grade funding.

Spending on other K-12 programs will bring the total education increase to $347.4 million, or 3.3 percent. Education is the largest single spending category - $9.7 billion - in the state's $28.3 billion budget.

Rendell did not get everything he asked for. His proposed increases for several programs were trimmed by 1.3 percent. Additionally, his Classrooms for the Future program to put laptop computers in every high school core-subject classroom was cut from $90 million to $45 million, delaying the complete rollout of the program by a year.

While the Philadelphia School District will receive $34 million less in basic subsidies than it had been slated to receive in earlier versions of the budget, the shortfall will be made up in other subsidies, said Rendell's senior policy adviser, Donna Cooper.

Just as important as increased basic funding for school districts, Rendell administration and school-reform advocates said, is the way that funding will be distributed.

The $275 million increase will be handed out according to a funding formula based on a 2007 study of the cost of an adequate education for children in each school district.

The use of the new funding formula, said Janis Risch, of Good Schools Pennsylvania, a reform group that has campaigned for increased funding, "is a tremendous step forward - it . . . begins to really address the education funding inequities experienced by students and communities."

But the legislature, shying away from committing itself to similarly large increases in future years, included only a vague commitment to meet new "state funding targets" by the 2013-14 school year.

The Rendell administration had wanted lawmakers to commit to increasing basic education funding by a total of $2.6 billion during six years, including the coming school year.

Nevertheless, Rendell aides and Democratic leaders say they see the language that did make it into the legislation as a call to keep increasing state funding until then, using the Rendell formula.

"I think we dramatically advanced the conversation on closing the adequacy gap" among school districts, said Cooper, Rendell's policy adviser. "The legislation has put into law language saying there is a [new funding] target to achieve and they will try to achieve that within six years - that is a giant step forward."

Republicans see the matter differently, saying the legislation is only a commitment to study funding further and come up with some kind of new subsidy scheme.

"It is very clear that the only commitment is to utilize the [Rendell] budget formula for one year - there is no commitment beyond that," said Senate Majority leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware).

The only other thing the new legislation commits the legislature to doing, Pileggi added, is examining the funding formula and the study on which it was based to determine how best to provide money to the districts most in need.

Timothy Allwein, the legislative liaison for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which supports the Rendell funding formula, said that at the very least, the "target" funding language provides a framework for further discussion.

Rendell suffered at least a partial defeat on one other initiative that he had strongly backed when the legislature delayed implementation of a plan for mandatory state subject tests for at least a year.

The legislature and many school boards had strongly opposed the tests, which some students would have to pass to demonstrate mastery in basic subjects before they could graduate from high school. Some larger school districts, including Philadelphia, have supported the testing requirement.

The state Board of Education had proposed new regulations, saying that the tests would be offered to students starting in 2010, with seniors having to pass them or show their mastery of basic skills in other ways by 2014. The school bill that was passed this year forbids those regulations from being "further promulgated, approved or proposed" before next July.

Cooper, the Rendell senior staffer, said that funding is still in the budget bill for both the development of the tests and the development of a model curriculum to ensure that students are learning what was included in the exams. The state Department of Education will go ahead with developing those tools, she said, and school districts will be able to voluntarily use the tests, even if the state cannot for now mandate them.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

GOP seeks to cut school funding

From the Inquirer this morning.

Our PA state legislators: Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)


GOP seeks to cut school funding
A Senate Republican bill would cut $400 million from Gov. Rendell’s budget.
By MARC LEVY

HARRISBURG — Public school funding is emerging as a friction point as state budget negotiators work to find common ground on an approximately $28 billion budget in the last two weeks of the fiscal year.

A Senate Republican budget bill that is primed for floor debate today would slash the $28.3 billion spending plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell by about $400 million. Of that, about $120 million would get cut from Rendell’s suggested basic education subsidy — state money that pays for instruction and operations in public schools.

Rendell called the proposed cut “hugely bad policy.”

“I asked around this morning, but the last time ... the basic education subsidy suggested by the governor was cut by the Legislature, no one could remember,” Rendell told reporters Tuesday.

The bill emerged from the GOP-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a party-line vote. A Senate Republican spokesman, Erik Arneson, characterized the bill as a step in the process of ongoing budget negotiations.

The sides have clashed over how much the state should increase spending. Rendell has advocated a 4.2 percent increase that includes $291 million more for basic education, a boost of 6 percent.

The Senate GOP bill puts forward a 2.8 percent overall spending increase. It would increase basic education spending by about $170 million, or 3.5 percent.

In the past, lawmakers have been averse to cutting a governor’s proposed education budget because school districts immediately plug their expected share of the money into their budgets. Should the Legislature trim down the governor’s proposed amount, lawmakers could face blame for local property tax increases that might result.

Rendell said he would he would rather use some of the state’s approximately $750 million budget reserve to fill in any cuts to his school funding proposal.

Arneson, however, said Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, would not discuss using the budget reserve until Rendell releases a fresh revenue projection for the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Without that projection, legislative negotiators do not know how much the state can spend. Rendell said his budget office is still watching the state’s daily revenue collections before it settles on a figure.

The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1. Rendell, who met legislative leaders in closed-door budget talks Tuesday, described the negotiations as making slow progress on various fronts.

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.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

School Funding Battle

The irony here is that the Emperor and his accomplices could follow through on his school death plan only to find out that action on the school funding formulas could have saved the district from the anguish of being used as a biology classrooom dissection frog.

Here's the email I was sent. Please visit the website and register. There is no cost involved and a copy of your email is sent to:

Governor Edward G. Rendell (D-PA)
Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th)
Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)



I have become increasingly concerned about how unfair Pennsylvania's
system of school finance is and how many children are not able to get a
quality education as a result. The wealthiest districts in the state
spend two and a half times as much per student as the poorest, and their
tax rates are actually much lower because they have much healthier tax
bases. As a result, many children in many communities simply don't
have access to the best teachers, modern books and materials, and
up-to-date programs. We really should do better by all of our children, and
I'm sure you agree with me about that. Nothing else the state does is
more important than guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren, no
matter where they live, have access to the best education possible.
Why am I writing to you now about this? I recently heard about and
became a supporter of the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign, and I would
like you to join me by clicking the link at the bottom of this e-ma
il. It will just take a minute. It will cost you nothing. Your
e-mail address will not be passed on to others. You will receive one
e-mail a week to keep you posted on the Campaign's progress. The children
of Pennsylvania need our help - and it is so easy to give that help.
Thanks.

Click on this URL to take action now
http://capwiz.com/paschoolfunding/utr/2/?a=11216011&i=87477843&c=&u=capwiz.com%2Fpaschoolfunding%2Fmlm%2Fsignup%2F

If your email program does not recognize the URL as a link,
copy the entire URL and paste it into your Web browser.