Reminder that the Morrisville Borough Council meets tonight. Will Steve Worob introduce his tax resolution? Or is he too concerned with promoting his book to be an effective council member?
Morrisville Council: 7:30 p.m., borough hall, 35 Union St. Agenda: public comment; payments to Morrisville Fire Co. and Morrisville Ambulance Squad; request the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission transfer of $40,000 from curb and sidewalk project to the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; award contract for the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; direct solicitor to create a referendum on the November ballot to increase the millage to support the Morrisville Ambulance Squad; ordinance for collection of insufficient-fund charges; final plan for Falkowski/Kilpinski Subdivision; advertise amended traffic ordinance; consider tennis program presented by NJTL of Trenton; establish recreation program director; consider supporting PA House bills 2532, 1065 and 2525 pertaining to animal regulations; consider preliminary subdivision plan for Christopher Urban subdivision at 121 Grandview Ave.; consider preparing and advertising an amendment to the zoning ordinance regarding signage; and consider entering a mutual aid agreement between the Morrisville Fire Co. and the Trenton Hazardous Materials Team. 215-295-8181
Monday, June 16, 2008
As Promised, Monday's Followup
Here's the column that Kate Fratti promised last week from her recent discussions with the Emperor and Angry Al.
Roadblock to drastic changes
Continuing their investigation into ways to reduce costs in Morrisville School District, Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.
She arrived at Hellmann’s West Bridge Street office just as a reporter and I were leaving it. We’d spent 90 minutes with Hellmann, Radosti and board member Bill Farrell, who agreed to share their rationale for proposing drastic changes to the financially strapped school system.
How drastic? They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition highschoolers out at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education. Although Shulick has expressed interest in privatizing Morrisville High, Hellmann maintains he met with DVH this time to learn more about how alternative schools work. I have trouble buying that, but he’s insistent.
As for changes, Hellmann acknowledges the high school would need renovations to accommodate new grades, but that’s the least of obstacles.
The roadblock to consolidation and severe cost-cutting is a 5-year teacher contract that prevents furloughs or any substantial change to the student-staff ratio until 2012. Morrisville’s student-staff ratio stands at12.3 to 1, which doesn’t always give a true picture of class size, but does dictate the number of professionals who must stay on the rolls. There are 71 teachers, 1 psychologist, 3 guidance counselors and a nurse and two gifted/instructional support aides for fewer than 1,000 kids.
Hellmann said savings realized by farming out high-schoolers could be used to reduce teaching ranks. “Maybe retirement incentives,” Hellmann said.
He conceded Morrisville, under the direction of Superintendent Beth Yonson, is successfully educating children in its elementary schools, but says the high school has become a last resort for kids failed by the Trenton school system across the river. They move into Morrisville at very low reading and math levels. “We can’t be the special education center for Bucks and Mercer counties,” he laments.
Radosti, whose gruff way of expressing his unfiltered thoughts about kids today, changes in society and Morrisville’s proximity to the Trenton school system has won few friends among more liberalminded residents, says he’s weary of being accused of being racist and anti-education just because he wants to cut costs so people his age can keep their homes. He raises his voice two decibels to explain to me just how weary.
A Morrisville grad and a retired police officer, he worked two and three jobs to send a son to Notre Dame High School and a daughter to Grey Nun Academy. In each case, because he feared Morrisville classrooms were too disruptive. Nothing like the school system he enjoyed years before them. Don’t tell him he doesn’t value education.
Hellmann sent all but one of his kids to Conwell-Egan Catholic. He has approached CEC about a tuition program for Morrisville.
Neither man pretends to have any warm and fuzzy emotional ties to a school system they say is a drain on its townspeople. It’s a problem, Hellmann says.
It looks like he’s working to be rid of it — and soon.
Roadblock to drastic changes
Continuing their investigation into ways to reduce costs in Morrisville School District, Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.
She arrived at Hellmann’s West Bridge Street office just as a reporter and I were leaving it. We’d spent 90 minutes with Hellmann, Radosti and board member Bill Farrell, who agreed to share their rationale for proposing drastic changes to the financially strapped school system.
How drastic? They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition highschoolers out at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education. Although Shulick has expressed interest in privatizing Morrisville High, Hellmann maintains he met with DVH this time to learn more about how alternative schools work. I have trouble buying that, but he’s insistent.
As for changes, Hellmann acknowledges the high school would need renovations to accommodate new grades, but that’s the least of obstacles.
The roadblock to consolidation and severe cost-cutting is a 5-year teacher contract that prevents furloughs or any substantial change to the student-staff ratio until 2012. Morrisville’s student-staff ratio stands at12.3 to 1, which doesn’t always give a true picture of class size, but does dictate the number of professionals who must stay on the rolls. There are 71 teachers, 1 psychologist, 3 guidance counselors and a nurse and two gifted/instructional support aides for fewer than 1,000 kids.
Hellmann said savings realized by farming out high-schoolers could be used to reduce teaching ranks. “Maybe retirement incentives,” Hellmann said.
He conceded Morrisville, under the direction of Superintendent Beth Yonson, is successfully educating children in its elementary schools, but says the high school has become a last resort for kids failed by the Trenton school system across the river. They move into Morrisville at very low reading and math levels. “We can’t be the special education center for Bucks and Mercer counties,” he laments.
Radosti, whose gruff way of expressing his unfiltered thoughts about kids today, changes in society and Morrisville’s proximity to the Trenton school system has won few friends among more liberalminded residents, says he’s weary of being accused of being racist and anti-education just because he wants to cut costs so people his age can keep their homes. He raises his voice two decibels to explain to me just how weary.
A Morrisville grad and a retired police officer, he worked two and three jobs to send a son to Notre Dame High School and a daughter to Grey Nun Academy. In each case, because he feared Morrisville classrooms were too disruptive. Nothing like the school system he enjoyed years before them. Don’t tell him he doesn’t value education.
Hellmann sent all but one of his kids to Conwell-Egan Catholic. He has approached CEC about a tuition program for Morrisville.
Neither man pretends to have any warm and fuzzy emotional ties to a school system they say is a drain on its townspeople. It’s a problem, Hellmann says.
It looks like he’s working to be rid of it — and soon.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Christmas in June?
Here's a nifty link to some video that was shot back in December. Fox29 came out to do a story on Santa's Workshop located right here in the Morrisville High School woodshop.
Can We Learn From Example?
In my trips through the blogosphere, all sorts of school issues come to the fore, but here's one that should be of particular interest to Hellmann's Heroes.
The Greenland School District, located near Fayetteville, Arkansas, was first placed on the state's fiscal distress list in 2003. In 2004, the state annexed the Winslow School District into Greenland because of financial problems and declining enrollment.
The Greenland-Winslow merger has been described as a "not very happy marriage." The Winslow residents complain consistently that the Greenland residents do not listen to them or take their ideas into consideration. "Winslow residents were 'treated like aliens from outer space' the last time they attempted to address the school board on an issue."
Fast forwarding through the painful details, Greenland made the hard choices necessary to get off of the financial distress list, and this happened in 2006.
But finances being finances, the progress made has slipped. Not all of the financial woes were self inflicted. Arkansas state law mandates millage rollbacks under certain conditions, and Greenland fell into that category. Now Greenland needs more money. So they went to the taxpayers.
District's Future in Voter's Hands
Monday, Jun 9, 2008 @08:33pm CST
The Greenland School District is asking voters for a mill increase. Administrators say it would help keep the district off the state's fiscal distress list. The district's asking voters to approve a 2.6 mill increase. To put it into perspective, that would mean the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an extra $52 a year-- or a dollar a week. The school district is suffering from millage rollbacks made by the state. It's state law to roll back millage rates if the value of homes in the district increases by more than ten percent. In Greenland, the state's rolled back exactly 2.6 mills. "The people in this district have at one time or another approved those 2.6 mills but they've been taken away on roll backs and all we're doing is asking them to put it back where it was by vote," says Greenland Superintendent Ron Brawner. The district's already cut costs by almost $500,000 from last year, but it's not enough. If the millage hike fails, Greenland may end up consolidating with a neighboring school district. "What folks have to realize, is if this doesn't pass and we get under even more scrutiny from the state, they may end up paying Fayetteville taxes, which are quite a bit higher," says Bill Groom, President of the Greenland Board of Education. The mill increase would put Greenland at a total of 39.5 mills. That's still lower than most districts, but it might be enough to save Greenland from consolidation. "We're not afraid to ask for it if we need it, and believe me, if we didn't absolutely have to have it we wouldn't be asking for it right now," Groom says. "It's just important for people that want to keep our school here and want to support our school to get out and vote on this thing," Brawner says. Plans to restructure some bonds are also wrapped up in this millage vote. The bonds would generate around $1 million for building improvements. If approved, the mill increase would take effect in 2010.
Even the superintendent got involved:
May 12, 2008
Greenland Schools have been placed in the Fiscal Distress category. This does not affect curriculum at this time. It does mean that all unnecessary expenses be eliminated. We are in the process of attaining this goal. Some of the cuts are not what we would like, but must be done. At this time, Greenland Schools need your support. Regardless of your convictions, we need you to vote on June 10, 2008. Remember your vote affects the present student population of Greenland Schools. The millage we are asking be passed is not a new millage. We are simply asking that you renew the millage of seven years ago that has been rolled back by Amendmant 59. We have lost revenue due to these roll backs. With the increases in costs (fuel for buses being primary), Greenland Schools needs this revenue.
Should the requested millage fail, there are unfavorable repercussions. One of these could be consolidation with another district. If this occurs, your taxes would increase by a similar amount or greater amount depending on the district Greenland would have to be consolidated. Some of our students have already experienced one consolidation. Do you really want to subject them to a second consolidation. Another consequence could be that all local control would cease. This would take the form of School Board suspension and a person being assigned by ADE as Superintendent with total control. These are what your vote decides. Go Vote, June 10, 2008.
It was up to the annexed Winslow voters:
Winslow residents were encouraged Thursday to think beyond hurt feelings when voting in the June 10 millage election.
Greenland School District officials hope their patrons to the south won't be swayed by the former Winslow School District's annexation into the Greenland district and its subsequent school closings.
"There are a lot of bad feelings about this thing. We have to move forward. We have to focus on the kids, " said Bill Groom, Greenland Board of Education president.
The millage increase passed. Barely.
GREENLAND June 10, 2008 10:30 PM CDT - Taxpayers in the Greenland School District will be paying higher taxes after approving a millage increase that won by a margin of only eight votes.
The unofficial returns show the millage increased was approved by a vote of 394 for the issue (51 percent) to 386 votes against (49 percent).
"I hope it holds up," said Greenland School Board President Bill Groom after learning of the results Tuesday night. "It's too close to make any plans yet."
In a breakdown of the votes, totals show the issue passed in Greenland by 346 votes for (64 percent) to 193 votes against (36 percent). However, voters in the former Winslow School District, which is now part of Greenland, overwhelmingly turned down the proposal with 32 votes for the issue (15 percent) to 178 votes against (85 percent).
All is well. The tax increase was passed, and Greenland can continue along on the path to recovery. Then, just four days after that tax increase was passed...
Greenland School District faces forced annexation
Officials notified Friday of pending annexation vote
The Greenland School District may be annexed into a neighboring school district because of financial woes.
Greenland School Board President Bill Groom and Superintendent Ron Brawner were notified Friday afternoon the Arkansas Department of Education staff will recommend the annexation into a contiguous district to the State Board of Education on July 14.
The receiving district was not identified in the letter to Groom and Brawner. If the state education board approves an annexation, it was unknown Friday when it would take effect.
Greenland is contiguous with the Fayetteville, West Fork, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Elkins and Mountainburg school districts.
Groom said he received a telephone call from Tripp Walter, an attorney with the state education department, notifying him of a letter that was faxed to the Greenland administration office. The letter was signed by State Education Commissioner Ken James.
James talked with Fayetteville Superintendent Bobby New about the possibility of annexing Greenland into the Fayetteville School District during a telephone call Friday afternoon, New said.
Such an annexation would mean Greenland would be absorbed into the receiving district. The receiving district would have to bring Greenland teachers to that district's salary schedule and Greenland's debt would be taken over by the receiving district.
Salaries, which account for about 80 percent of Fayetteville's budget, could be a critical issue. Fayetteville is among the highest paying districts in Northwest Arkansas; Greenland is one of the lowest.
The condition of Greenland's buildings and buses, bus routes, the cost of fuel and other financial considerations also need to be examined, New said.
The school district that was forced into accepting another school district, will now itself be forced onto another school district.
Perhaps the one reader comment said it best: "Now the school will die along with our pirate pride and tradition."
Just to put it into perspective, the Winslow students could face a 25 mile bus ride to Fayetteville.
Buckle up, Morrisville! This is the roller coaster ride the Emperor wants you to experience.
The Greenland School District, located near Fayetteville, Arkansas, was first placed on the state's fiscal distress list in 2003. In 2004, the state annexed the Winslow School District into Greenland because of financial problems and declining enrollment.
The Greenland-Winslow merger has been described as a "not very happy marriage." The Winslow residents complain consistently that the Greenland residents do not listen to them or take their ideas into consideration. "Winslow residents were 'treated like aliens from outer space' the last time they attempted to address the school board on an issue."
Fast forwarding through the painful details, Greenland made the hard choices necessary to get off of the financial distress list, and this happened in 2006.
But finances being finances, the progress made has slipped. Not all of the financial woes were self inflicted. Arkansas state law mandates millage rollbacks under certain conditions, and Greenland fell into that category. Now Greenland needs more money. So they went to the taxpayers.
District's Future in Voter's Hands
Monday, Jun 9, 2008 @08:33pm CST
The Greenland School District is asking voters for a mill increase. Administrators say it would help keep the district off the state's fiscal distress list. The district's asking voters to approve a 2.6 mill increase. To put it into perspective, that would mean the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an extra $52 a year-- or a dollar a week. The school district is suffering from millage rollbacks made by the state. It's state law to roll back millage rates if the value of homes in the district increases by more than ten percent. In Greenland, the state's rolled back exactly 2.6 mills. "The people in this district have at one time or another approved those 2.6 mills but they've been taken away on roll backs and all we're doing is asking them to put it back where it was by vote," says Greenland Superintendent Ron Brawner. The district's already cut costs by almost $500,000 from last year, but it's not enough. If the millage hike fails, Greenland may end up consolidating with a neighboring school district. "What folks have to realize, is if this doesn't pass and we get under even more scrutiny from the state, they may end up paying Fayetteville taxes, which are quite a bit higher," says Bill Groom, President of the Greenland Board of Education. The mill increase would put Greenland at a total of 39.5 mills. That's still lower than most districts, but it might be enough to save Greenland from consolidation. "We're not afraid to ask for it if we need it, and believe me, if we didn't absolutely have to have it we wouldn't be asking for it right now," Groom says. "It's just important for people that want to keep our school here and want to support our school to get out and vote on this thing," Brawner says. Plans to restructure some bonds are also wrapped up in this millage vote. The bonds would generate around $1 million for building improvements. If approved, the mill increase would take effect in 2010.
Even the superintendent got involved:
May 12, 2008
Greenland Schools have been placed in the Fiscal Distress category. This does not affect curriculum at this time. It does mean that all unnecessary expenses be eliminated. We are in the process of attaining this goal. Some of the cuts are not what we would like, but must be done. At this time, Greenland Schools need your support. Regardless of your convictions, we need you to vote on June 10, 2008. Remember your vote affects the present student population of Greenland Schools. The millage we are asking be passed is not a new millage. We are simply asking that you renew the millage of seven years ago that has been rolled back by Amendmant 59. We have lost revenue due to these roll backs. With the increases in costs (fuel for buses being primary), Greenland Schools needs this revenue.
Should the requested millage fail, there are unfavorable repercussions. One of these could be consolidation with another district. If this occurs, your taxes would increase by a similar amount or greater amount depending on the district Greenland would have to be consolidated. Some of our students have already experienced one consolidation. Do you really want to subject them to a second consolidation. Another consequence could be that all local control would cease. This would take the form of School Board suspension and a person being assigned by ADE as Superintendent with total control. These are what your vote decides. Go Vote, June 10, 2008.
It was up to the annexed Winslow voters:
Winslow residents were encouraged Thursday to think beyond hurt feelings when voting in the June 10 millage election.
Greenland School District officials hope their patrons to the south won't be swayed by the former Winslow School District's annexation into the Greenland district and its subsequent school closings.
"There are a lot of bad feelings about this thing. We have to move forward. We have to focus on the kids, " said Bill Groom, Greenland Board of Education president.
The millage increase passed. Barely.
GREENLAND June 10, 2008 10:30 PM CDT - Taxpayers in the Greenland School District will be paying higher taxes after approving a millage increase that won by a margin of only eight votes.
The unofficial returns show the millage increased was approved by a vote of 394 for the issue (51 percent) to 386 votes against (49 percent).
"I hope it holds up," said Greenland School Board President Bill Groom after learning of the results Tuesday night. "It's too close to make any plans yet."
In a breakdown of the votes, totals show the issue passed in Greenland by 346 votes for (64 percent) to 193 votes against (36 percent). However, voters in the former Winslow School District, which is now part of Greenland, overwhelmingly turned down the proposal with 32 votes for the issue (15 percent) to 178 votes against (85 percent).
All is well. The tax increase was passed, and Greenland can continue along on the path to recovery. Then, just four days after that tax increase was passed...
Greenland School District faces forced annexation
Officials notified Friday of pending annexation vote
The Greenland School District may be annexed into a neighboring school district because of financial woes.
Greenland School Board President Bill Groom and Superintendent Ron Brawner were notified Friday afternoon the Arkansas Department of Education staff will recommend the annexation into a contiguous district to the State Board of Education on July 14.
The receiving district was not identified in the letter to Groom and Brawner. If the state education board approves an annexation, it was unknown Friday when it would take effect.
Greenland is contiguous with the Fayetteville, West Fork, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Elkins and Mountainburg school districts.
Groom said he received a telephone call from Tripp Walter, an attorney with the state education department, notifying him of a letter that was faxed to the Greenland administration office. The letter was signed by State Education Commissioner Ken James.
James talked with Fayetteville Superintendent Bobby New about the possibility of annexing Greenland into the Fayetteville School District during a telephone call Friday afternoon, New said.
Such an annexation would mean Greenland would be absorbed into the receiving district. The receiving district would have to bring Greenland teachers to that district's salary schedule and Greenland's debt would be taken over by the receiving district.
Salaries, which account for about 80 percent of Fayetteville's budget, could be a critical issue. Fayetteville is among the highest paying districts in Northwest Arkansas; Greenland is one of the lowest.
The condition of Greenland's buildings and buses, bus routes, the cost of fuel and other financial considerations also need to be examined, New said.
The school district that was forced into accepting another school district, will now itself be forced onto another school district.
Perhaps the one reader comment said it best: "Now the school will die along with our pirate pride and tradition."
Just to put it into perspective, the Winslow students could face a 25 mile bus ride to Fayetteville.
Buckle up, Morrisville! This is the roller coaster ride the Emperor wants you to experience.
- Shotgun wedding to another district
- Being ignored by the other district in policymaking
- Paying the higher taxes anyway
- Facing mandated budget cuts, no matter the cost to the students
- Facing complete loss of local control by state takeover.
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."
Atomic Clocks Fail Too, You Know
Kudos to jon for pointing out that 9:00 A.M. isn't always 9:00 A.M. It sometimes depends on where you are.
What's this I hear that the Emperor is cooking the books when it comes to filling the late Ed Frankenfield's seat? Did he really stage a Godfather-like scene where he received school board nominations at his office from guests pledging everlasting fealty?
Inquiring minds want to know...
What's this I hear that the Emperor is cooking the books when it comes to filling the late Ed Frankenfield's seat? Did he really stage a Godfather-like scene where he received school board nominations at his office from guests pledging everlasting fealty?
Inquiring minds want to know...
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
New Orleans schools chief chips away at big issues
Associate Press
Paul Vallas recently passed his first major milestone when fourth- and eighth-graders in the city's woeful public schools posted significantly higher test scores on state tests.
Winston Churchill was right: education is too important to be left to politicians
Daily Telegraph
Just as hundreds of thousands of pupils, including my own children, sat down this week to start their A-levels, Imperial College, London, declared that what they were doing was, from its point of view, "almost worthless".
Milwaukee Public Schools ordered to do more for special needs
Milwaukee Journa-Sentinel
BY ALAN J. BORSUK
A federal judge has ruled full-force in favor of potentially historic changes that would require Milwaukee Public Schools to provide more services sooner to thousands of struggling students.
Part 2: America had the world's best school system.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
The idea that America was being harmed because our schools were not keeping up with other advanced nations emerged after Sputnik, took hold of educational policy after the Reagan Administration's "A Nation At Risk" report, and continues today. This concern is justified by evidence showing that within the USA, test scores predict a number of important life advantages, such as going on to college and making more money as an adult.
Peer review system for teachers spreads
By Claudio Sanchez, National Public Radio (Audio)
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
Associate Press
Paul Vallas recently passed his first major milestone when fourth- and eighth-graders in the city's woeful public schools posted significantly higher test scores on state tests.
Winston Churchill was right: education is too important to be left to politicians
Daily Telegraph
Just as hundreds of thousands of pupils, including my own children, sat down this week to start their A-levels, Imperial College, London, declared that what they were doing was, from its point of view, "almost worthless".
Milwaukee Public Schools ordered to do more for special needs
Milwaukee Journa-Sentinel
BY ALAN J. BORSUK
A federal judge has ruled full-force in favor of potentially historic changes that would require Milwaukee Public Schools to provide more services sooner to thousands of struggling students.
Part 2: America had the world's best school system.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
The idea that America was being harmed because our schools were not keeping up with other advanced nations emerged after Sputnik, took hold of educational policy after the Reagan Administration's "A Nation At Risk" report, and continues today. This concern is justified by evidence showing that within the USA, test scores predict a number of important life advantages, such as going on to college and making more money as an adult.
Peer review system for teachers spreads
By Claudio Sanchez, National Public Radio (Audio)
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
Friday, June 13, 2008
So What Are Your Thoughts?
Here's a blog entry from Kate Fratti. Do you think the Emperor is simply chock full of waste products? Is Farrell a complete coward or just unwilling to be linked with a premature plan? Why is the Emperor backpedaling like a frightened deer? Is it time to replace the Emperor with someone else? Why is the Emperor excluding Reithmeyer and Kemp? (Do I smell fear in the water?) Why does the Emperor fear Reithmeyer and Kemp so much? (More fear! Are they strong with The Force?) What lapdog toadie is the Emperor's handpicked successor to the community minded Ed Frankenfield? These and other questions to be answered on the next episode of "As The Bulldog Turns"
As for a formal proposal? Let's make one and let it sit exposed to public scrutiny. The Emperor is unwilling to let anything he does be exposed to public scrutiny.
This Emperor? He is not clothed at all. He is a feeble mockery of a man.
Not so fast, Fratti
Last week, I met with Morrisville School Board President Bill Hellmann and members Al Radosti and Bill Farrell to understand better what changes they propose for the school district. The status quo, won’t cut it, they say. Morrisville is drowning in the cost of it all.
As I was leaving, the arrival of a representative for Delaware Valley High School was announced. I asked Bill Hellmann why he was meeting with DVH. He declined to comment.
You’ll recall that earlier this year DVH president Dave Shulick a Philadelphia attorney proposed privatizing MV High. Said he could do it for a fraction of the cost and could educate kids right in town. The school is best known for educating at-risk kids, but I was assured the school is accredited and experienced in regular education. Parent reaction to the offer was swift and negative. Prematurely negative, I think. I’d have like to have heard a formal proposal by DVH, but it wasn’t to be.
Intrigued by the meeting at Hellmann’s office now, I blogged about it to you. Looked like the presentation would be made not-so-formally first.
My blog turned up on Savethemorrisvilleschoolblogspot.com and comments from parents were fast and furious. They were ticked off.
That may have led to an email from Bill this morning, copied to all the majority board members, but not to Robin Reitmeyer and Joe Kemp, that he’d only met with DVH to learn more about how alternative schools work indicating that I’d jumped the gun and signaled to parents a worry where there shouldn’t be one. No talk of privatizing, says he.
No one knows if that’s true but Bill and Al Radosti. Farrell didn’t stay for the meeting. We’ll have to take the first two at their word.
More about my meeting with the fellas in my column on Monday.
Posted by Kate Fratti at 1:47 pm | |
As for a formal proposal? Let's make one and let it sit exposed to public scrutiny. The Emperor is unwilling to let anything he does be exposed to public scrutiny.
This Emperor? He is not clothed at all. He is a feeble mockery of a man.
Not so fast, Fratti
Last week, I met with Morrisville School Board President Bill Hellmann and members Al Radosti and Bill Farrell to understand better what changes they propose for the school district. The status quo, won’t cut it, they say. Morrisville is drowning in the cost of it all.
As I was leaving, the arrival of a representative for Delaware Valley High School was announced. I asked Bill Hellmann why he was meeting with DVH. He declined to comment.
You’ll recall that earlier this year DVH president Dave Shulick a Philadelphia attorney proposed privatizing MV High. Said he could do it for a fraction of the cost and could educate kids right in town. The school is best known for educating at-risk kids, but I was assured the school is accredited and experienced in regular education. Parent reaction to the offer was swift and negative. Prematurely negative, I think. I’d have like to have heard a formal proposal by DVH, but it wasn’t to be.
Intrigued by the meeting at Hellmann’s office now, I blogged about it to you. Looked like the presentation would be made not-so-formally first.
My blog turned up on Savethemorrisvilleschoolblogspot.com and comments from parents were fast and furious. They were ticked off.
That may have led to an email from Bill this morning, copied to all the majority board members, but not to Robin Reitmeyer and Joe Kemp, that he’d only met with DVH to learn more about how alternative schools work indicating that I’d jumped the gun and signaled to parents a worry where there shouldn’t be one. No talk of privatizing, says he.
No one knows if that’s true but Bill and Al Radosti. Farrell didn’t stay for the meeting. We’ll have to take the first two at their word.
More about my meeting with the fellas in my column on Monday.
Posted by Kate Fratti at 1:47 pm | |
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.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Farming Poll: Part II
As you can see, I have a new poll entered and I encourage you to vote. The Emperor still doesn't "get it". Please vote and make sure that he and his accomplices know that you are tired of his egotistical ways.
If you vote one of the "do what's right for the kids" options, that's fine, but why don't you let us know what you think is the "right" thing to do.
If you vote one of the "do what's right for the kids" options, that's fine, but why don't you let us know what you think is the "right" thing to do.
The 110th and Next to Last Graduating Class
Last night the next to last (penultimate, for those sesquipedalians out there) graduating class from Morrisville High School was presented with their diplomas. Apparently the class of 2009 will be receiving walking papers.
Kudos to Superintendent Yonson and the institution of the Edward H. Frankenfield Memorial Award. A good man like that deserves to be remembered by the measure of a student's service to others. It's too bad that his memory is being trampled upon by the likes of the Emperor and Angry Al as they seek to dismantle the community they claim to be protecting.
Congratulations and best wishes to the Class of 2008.
Take a look at the statistics from these young women and men. Why is this school board trying to push them away? Why aren't their achievements and successes being celebrated?
Taking lessons into the future
“As we leave here, we should remember the lessons we learned and use them to the best of our ability,” one speaker said.
By MANASEE WAGH
While Morrisville High School’s graduating class was small, its seniors truly enjoyed the close-knit community they formed.
That was the consensus of many of the 73 graduates at Wednesday evening’s commencement ceremony on the high school grounds.
“It’s nice. You get to talk to everyone and you know everyone,” said graduate Ashley Woodhouse.
This year marked the 110th commencement of a high school in which teachers could connect with a small student body on a more personal level, said several students. Salutatorian Lauren Ramos, who’s planning a career in forensics, thanked several of her teachers for guiding her through the trials of four years of high school and for making learning fun.
“As we leave here, we should remember the lessons we learned and use them to the best of our ability,” she told her classmates.
The speaker giving the commencement address this year, sportscaster Don Tollefson, garnered much applause from listeners for his words of inspiration.
“Never let a single human being tell you there’s something you cannot do,” he told students. Tollefson brought up the Democratic election as an example of how minorities Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bucked tradition to run for the White House.
He also advised them that failure is “a stepping stone,” and that they should never give up.
As a tribute to the graduates’ community involvement, Morrisville Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson introduced an award in honor of recently deceased school board member, Edward Frankenfield.
“He contributed to the community in so many ways,” said Yonson. With Frankenfield’s wife and son, she presented graduate Sarah O’Connor with the honorary Edward H. Frankenfield Memorial Award for many hours of volunteer service with a variety of community services and organizations.
Presenting one graduate with the award plaque and a monetary gift will become an annual tradition, said Yonson.
This year’s class earned nearly 6,000 hours of community service altogether.
Senior class President Justin Howell said that the community and the schools are closely connected in Morrisville.
“I’ll always feel I’m part of the community here,” he said. “We can move on with the knowledge that we can be proud of our hometown and we have a hometown that’s proud of us.”
Morrisville High School
Graduates: 73
National Honor Society members: 3
Valedictorian: Matthew Miller
Salutatorian: Lauren Ramos
Student speakers: Justin Howell (President of Class), Brittany Caldwell (Vice President), Christina Doan (Secretary), Andrew Brake (Treasury)
Percent going on to higher education: 81
Percent going into the military: 1
Percent going to the workforce: 18
Amount of scholarship money offered (to entire class; not just the amount accepted; this is the total amount offered) $257,734
Number of community service hours (by the entire class of "08): 5,933 hours
Noteworthy accomplishments of the graduating class: The seniors organized a charity Powder Puff Football Game for a local family whose daughter had cancer; Bicentennial Athletic League Championships in softball and baseball; 31 seniors earned 197 dual enrollment college credits.
Student Farming Plan Back on the Agenda
It looks like last night's Morrisville High School class of 2008 is shaping up to be the next to last MHS class.
What is it with these two and what do they have against the Morrisville school system? Here's two bitter and angry men out for destruction. Remember the January board meeting where the Emperor even conceded that "he got it" and the community did not want the high school students tuitioned out?
Private Morrisville High?
Posted in News on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm by Columnist Kate Fratti
Continuing their investigation into privatizing Morrisville High School, school board directors Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition high-schoolers out to another district or to Delaware Valley High School at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education that could be provided in or near Morrisville.
What is it with these two and what do they have against the Morrisville school system? Here's two bitter and angry men out for destruction. Remember the January board meeting where the Emperor even conceded that "he got it" and the community did not want the high school students tuitioned out?
Private Morrisville High?
Posted in News on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm by Columnist Kate Fratti
Continuing their investigation into privatizing Morrisville High School, school board directors Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition high-schoolers out to another district or to Delaware Valley High School at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education that could be provided in or near Morrisville.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
PA Statewide Tests Unlikely
It looks like the proposed statewide graduation testing plan in Pennsylvania is not going to be gaining any traction any time soon now. The politicians want the power to institute testing, taking it away from the state board of education.
Pa. senators advance bill to block graduation testing
MARTHA RAFFAELE, The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A state Senate panel has advanced a bill to effectively block a proposal to require new state graduation tests for Pennsylvania high school students.
The Senate Education Committee voted 10-1 Monday to approve a measure that would give the Legislature the sole authority to impose any new statewide high school graduation requirements.
The State Board of Education has proposed creating a series of 10 final examinations covering math, science, English and social studies. Students would have to pass six to graduate, starting with the class of 2014.
Education Committee Chairman James Rhoades opposes the new tests. The Schuylkill County Republican says money the state would spend on developing the exams would be better spent on other strategies to boost student achievement.
Pa. senators advance bill to block graduation testing
MARTHA RAFFAELE, The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A state Senate panel has advanced a bill to effectively block a proposal to require new state graduation tests for Pennsylvania high school students.
The Senate Education Committee voted 10-1 Monday to approve a measure that would give the Legislature the sole authority to impose any new statewide high school graduation requirements.
The State Board of Education has proposed creating a series of 10 final examinations covering math, science, English and social studies. Students would have to pass six to graduate, starting with the class of 2014.
Education Committee Chairman James Rhoades opposes the new tests. The Schuylkill County Republican says money the state would spend on developing the exams would be better spent on other strategies to boost student achievement.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Leadership Lessons
It only takes one. One person's leadership can make a difference.
This commentary appeared in the Sunday BCCT and brought back a lot of memories about those days in June when we started to ask the question, "Which Kennedy assassination?" and stood at the side of the train tracks to say goodbye to another political leader taken too soon.
The issue here is not if you agree or disagree with playing baseball on the Sunday following RFK's assassination, but the instructive example of one man who had a vision. The vision became a collaboration and then a reality.
You can protest all you want. "I'm just a...", and fill in the blank with ditch digger, french-fry cook, office worker, refuse-collection artist, or stay at home parent. That doesn't change the fact that you can exert leadership in your own little corner of the world in your own way. Position alone does not define leadership. Leadership is the measure of the person in the position.
You just need to be ready to step up to the challenge.
During tragedy, playing games took precedence
Jerry Jonas’ column appears in the Life Section every Sunday.
It’s often been said that games like baseball and football are basically children’s games played by grown men. Sometimes these grown men take their games far too seriously. A classic example of this occurred 40 years ago this weekend following the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, after celebrating his victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, Kennedy was shot by a 24-year-old gunman. He succumbed to his wounds early the next morning.
Saturday morning, Betty and I and our then-young children, watched the live telecast of Kennedy’s Funeral Mass from New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At its conclusion, we headed to the Levittown railroad station to stand alongside the tracks with hundreds of others and watch the senator’s funeral train pass on its sad journey from New York to Washington, D.C.
That afternoon, after listening to President Lyndon Johnson declare that the next day, Sunday, June 9, would be a national day of mourning, it suddenly occurred to me that the Phillies were in Los Angeles, the city where RFK had been killed, and, despite the president’s request, they would be playing a ballgame with the Dodgers.
Two months earlier, after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, all Major League Baseball clubs had been asked to postpone their games on the day of his funeral. At that time the Phillies were in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers — the only major league team unwilling to postpone their game. To their credit, and despite facing a fine and forfeiture, the Phillies refused to play.
Following King’s death, there had been rioting, looting, even killing in many major league cities, and there was good reason to fear what might happen had the games been played.
By contrast, at the time of RFK’s death, there was no fear of violence, and with the exception of two postponed games on Saturday in New York and Washington (where the funeral Mass and burial took place) all the games were ordered played. In opposition, the Major League Players Association urged the leagues to declare a day of mourning either Saturday or Sunday, but neither baseball’s commissioner William Eckert, nor the leagues’ presidents Joe Cronin (AL) and Warren Giles (NL) would do so.
Eckert released a condescending statement saying that baseball was paying tribute to Sen. Kennedy with no Saturday games to begin before the completion of the funeral, and that appropriate tribute be would be paid by all clubs at the Sunday games.
Not unexpectedly, many players were outraged and a few rebelled. Despite warnings from management, on Saturday all 25 Houston Astros players voted not to take the field against Pittsburgh, and the New York Mets, backed by their board chairman, refused to play the Giants in San Francisco. Since the Giants had sold 40,000 seats in advance, their owner said that he wanted indemnification from the Mets and insisted that they forfeit the game.
In Los Angeles, the Dodgers once again insisted on playing. This time the Phillies did not protest, and both teams announced that they would wear black armbands in respect for the late senator.
At the time, I was regional advertising and promotions manager for Ballantine Beer, then a major TV and radio sponsor for the Phillies. The thoughts of a ball game being played and telecast on a day of mourning depressed me. The thought of our happy-go-lucky beer commercials being broadcast that day disgusted me.
While I couldn’t stop the game, I could do something about the commercials. I would simply cancel them. I informed the TV and radio stations that we were removing our spots from the game and that one of the announcers should read the following statement: “Out of respect for the memory of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, and in keeping with the president’s request that today be a national day of mourning, Ballantine will not be televising any of its commercial messages during the game.” It was a subtle protest of baseball’s decision to play the game.
The station executives were now in a quandary. At first they insisted that it was too late to cancel the spots. Their argument was that there were two others sponsors, and that if we pulled our spots and they didn’t pull theirs, it would make them look bad. And since it was already Saturday afternoon, they weren’t sure that they could reach them. The station personnel also insisted that the three Phillies announcers would have difficulty filling-in the extra time.
A phone call to the announcers Byrum Saam, Bill Campbell, and Rich Ashburn (who ironically were staying at the Ambassador Hotel where Kennedy had been gunned down) assured me that they would manage to ad lib during the extra minutes.
Re-contacting the stations, I insisted that the advertising be canceled. Within 30 minutes another major sponsor agreed to follow our lead and cancel their commercials. Now it was up to the third major sponsor. Although they took some time to reach a decision, faced with being the only major sponsor to run their spots, they also agreed to cancel.
The next day the game went on complete with black arm bands. Our original message became a joint message from the three sponsors informing TV viewers and radio listeners that there would be no commercial advertising during the broadcast.
Although it didn’t completely make up for the lack of respect shown by Major League Baseball that weekend, the protests of many individual players and the cancellation of our commercials did add a small measure of dignity to an otherwise tasteless episode.
This commentary appeared in the Sunday BCCT and brought back a lot of memories about those days in June when we started to ask the question, "Which Kennedy assassination?" and stood at the side of the train tracks to say goodbye to another political leader taken too soon.
The issue here is not if you agree or disagree with playing baseball on the Sunday following RFK's assassination, but the instructive example of one man who had a vision. The vision became a collaboration and then a reality.
You can protest all you want. "I'm just a...", and fill in the blank with ditch digger, french-fry cook, office worker, refuse-collection artist, or stay at home parent. That doesn't change the fact that you can exert leadership in your own little corner of the world in your own way. Position alone does not define leadership. Leadership is the measure of the person in the position.
You just need to be ready to step up to the challenge.
During tragedy, playing games took precedence
Jerry Jonas’ column appears in the Life Section every Sunday.
It’s often been said that games like baseball and football are basically children’s games played by grown men. Sometimes these grown men take their games far too seriously. A classic example of this occurred 40 years ago this weekend following the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, after celebrating his victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, Kennedy was shot by a 24-year-old gunman. He succumbed to his wounds early the next morning.
Saturday morning, Betty and I and our then-young children, watched the live telecast of Kennedy’s Funeral Mass from New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At its conclusion, we headed to the Levittown railroad station to stand alongside the tracks with hundreds of others and watch the senator’s funeral train pass on its sad journey from New York to Washington, D.C.
That afternoon, after listening to President Lyndon Johnson declare that the next day, Sunday, June 9, would be a national day of mourning, it suddenly occurred to me that the Phillies were in Los Angeles, the city where RFK had been killed, and, despite the president’s request, they would be playing a ballgame with the Dodgers.
Two months earlier, after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, all Major League Baseball clubs had been asked to postpone their games on the day of his funeral. At that time the Phillies were in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers — the only major league team unwilling to postpone their game. To their credit, and despite facing a fine and forfeiture, the Phillies refused to play.
Following King’s death, there had been rioting, looting, even killing in many major league cities, and there was good reason to fear what might happen had the games been played.
By contrast, at the time of RFK’s death, there was no fear of violence, and with the exception of two postponed games on Saturday in New York and Washington (where the funeral Mass and burial took place) all the games were ordered played. In opposition, the Major League Players Association urged the leagues to declare a day of mourning either Saturday or Sunday, but neither baseball’s commissioner William Eckert, nor the leagues’ presidents Joe Cronin (AL) and Warren Giles (NL) would do so.
Eckert released a condescending statement saying that baseball was paying tribute to Sen. Kennedy with no Saturday games to begin before the completion of the funeral, and that appropriate tribute be would be paid by all clubs at the Sunday games.
Not unexpectedly, many players were outraged and a few rebelled. Despite warnings from management, on Saturday all 25 Houston Astros players voted not to take the field against Pittsburgh, and the New York Mets, backed by their board chairman, refused to play the Giants in San Francisco. Since the Giants had sold 40,000 seats in advance, their owner said that he wanted indemnification from the Mets and insisted that they forfeit the game.
In Los Angeles, the Dodgers once again insisted on playing. This time the Phillies did not protest, and both teams announced that they would wear black armbands in respect for the late senator.
At the time, I was regional advertising and promotions manager for Ballantine Beer, then a major TV and radio sponsor for the Phillies. The thoughts of a ball game being played and telecast on a day of mourning depressed me. The thought of our happy-go-lucky beer commercials being broadcast that day disgusted me.
While I couldn’t stop the game, I could do something about the commercials. I would simply cancel them. I informed the TV and radio stations that we were removing our spots from the game and that one of the announcers should read the following statement: “Out of respect for the memory of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, and in keeping with the president’s request that today be a national day of mourning, Ballantine will not be televising any of its commercial messages during the game.” It was a subtle protest of baseball’s decision to play the game.
The station executives were now in a quandary. At first they insisted that it was too late to cancel the spots. Their argument was that there were two others sponsors, and that if we pulled our spots and they didn’t pull theirs, it would make them look bad. And since it was already Saturday afternoon, they weren’t sure that they could reach them. The station personnel also insisted that the three Phillies announcers would have difficulty filling-in the extra time.
A phone call to the announcers Byrum Saam, Bill Campbell, and Rich Ashburn (who ironically were staying at the Ambassador Hotel where Kennedy had been gunned down) assured me that they would manage to ad lib during the extra minutes.
Re-contacting the stations, I insisted that the advertising be canceled. Within 30 minutes another major sponsor agreed to follow our lead and cancel their commercials. Now it was up to the third major sponsor. Although they took some time to reach a decision, faced with being the only major sponsor to run their spots, they also agreed to cancel.
The next day the game went on complete with black arm bands. Our original message became a joint message from the three sponsors informing TV viewers and radio listeners that there would be no commercial advertising during the broadcast.
Although it didn’t completely make up for the lack of respect shown by Major League Baseball that weekend, the protests of many individual players and the cancellation of our commercials did add a small measure of dignity to an otherwise tasteless episode.
Monday, June 9, 2008
501C-3 Educational Foundation Forming
501C-3 Educational Foundation Forming
The Morrisville School District is seeking individuals to participate in a committee to establish a non-profit educational foundation to enable educators to provide additional educational experiences to enrich students' education. Send letter of interest to Dr. Elizabeth Yonson, Superintendent, 550 W. Palmer St., Morrisville, PA 19067 or fax 215-736-2413.
The Morrisville School District is seeking individuals to participate in a committee to establish a non-profit educational foundation to enable educators to provide additional educational experiences to enrich students' education. Send letter of interest to Dr. Elizabeth Yonson, Superintendent, 550 W. Palmer St., Morrisville, PA 19067 or fax 215-736-2413.
School Board Vacancy Reminder
School Board Vacancy
With last week's death of Ed Frankenfield, the board is advertising for candidates to fill the unexpired portion of his term.
Please keep in mind the deadline is this coming Friday, June 13, 2008, at 9:00 A.M.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, THAT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF BOROUGH OF MORRISVILLE IS
SEEKING RESIDENT APPLICANTS TO FILL A VACANCY ON THE
MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD.
APPLICANTS MUST BE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OF AGE AND
MUST HAVE LIVED IN THE DISTRICT FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION IS 9:00 A.M. ON FRIDAY, 6-13-
08. IF INTERESTED, FORWARD RESUME AND LETTER OF
APPLICATION TO: MARLYS MIHOK, BOARD SECRETARY, 550
W. PALMER ST., MORRISVILLE, PA 19067-2195. FAX 215-736-
2413.
With last week's death of Ed Frankenfield, the board is advertising for candidates to fill the unexpired portion of his term.
Please keep in mind the deadline is this coming Friday, June 13, 2008, at 9:00 A.M.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, THAT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF BOROUGH OF MORRISVILLE IS
SEEKING RESIDENT APPLICANTS TO FILL A VACANCY ON THE
MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD.
APPLICANTS MUST BE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OF AGE AND
MUST HAVE LIVED IN THE DISTRICT FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION IS 9:00 A.M. ON FRIDAY, 6-13-
08. IF INTERESTED, FORWARD RESUME AND LETTER OF
APPLICATION TO: MARLYS MIHOK, BOARD SECRETARY, 550
W. PALMER ST., MORRISVILLE, PA 19067-2195. FAX 215-736-
2413.
Reminder of Aged Schools/Heat Closure
It certainly is hot out there, and the school district is closing early today.
Just another reminder of the precarious condition of our schools.
Just another reminder of the precarious condition of our schools.
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
America had the world's best school system.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
Once upon a time, and not so long ago, America had the world's best school system. That may no longer be true, and the reason why will surprise you.
Education reformers typically claim we have a serious problem with our schools because American students do poorly compared to other nations on international tests. They claim our low scores will adversely affect our ability to compete economically on the world stage.
The National Math Panel Report Goes to Washington
Barry Garelick
Columnist EducationNews.org
The National Math Advisory Panel (NMP), which was formed two years ago, released its final report on March 13, 2008. One of the principal messages of the report is that "the delivery system in mathematics education is broken and must be fixed." Such a statement is hard to ignore, so it was only a matter of time before someone on the Hill would look into what it would take to fix the broken system.
Charter oversight hobbled in 2005
Philadelphia Daily News
Rather than risk offending powerful legislators, the School Reform Commission decided to end audits.
The Philadelphia School District's first audits of charter schools up for renewal in 2004 found problems at all seven, including conflicts of interest at a charter founded by the wife of State Rep. John Perzel, the powerful Northeast Republican who was then speaker of the House.
Government's education policy is self-defeating, academics warn
The Independent
The drive to reform Britain's education system, with frequent shifts in policy and the added burden of targets, is self-defeating and "working against the Government's own intentions", leading academics have warned ministers.
In Defense of Testing Series: NIST Assessment of the U.S. Measurement System
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released a new report, An Assessment of the United States Measurement System: Addressing Measurement Barriers to Accelerate Innovation (NIST Special Publication 1048). The report is available at usms.nist.gov and consists of 68 pages for the main report plus nearly 1,000 pages of appendixes. An eight-page "in brief" summary is also available.
Living Literacy: A Cycle of Life to Text and Text to Life
Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski
In a December 2007 New Yorker article, "Twilight of the Books," author Caleb Crain laments the decline of literacy in the United States, citing a number of studies indicating, "Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability." Crain reports that, "readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theater, paint, go to music events, take photos, and volunteer.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
Once upon a time, and not so long ago, America had the world's best school system. That may no longer be true, and the reason why will surprise you.
Education reformers typically claim we have a serious problem with our schools because American students do poorly compared to other nations on international tests. They claim our low scores will adversely affect our ability to compete economically on the world stage.
The National Math Panel Report Goes to Washington
Barry Garelick
Columnist EducationNews.org
The National Math Advisory Panel (NMP), which was formed two years ago, released its final report on March 13, 2008. One of the principal messages of the report is that "the delivery system in mathematics education is broken and must be fixed." Such a statement is hard to ignore, so it was only a matter of time before someone on the Hill would look into what it would take to fix the broken system.
Charter oversight hobbled in 2005
Philadelphia Daily News
Rather than risk offending powerful legislators, the School Reform Commission decided to end audits.
The Philadelphia School District's first audits of charter schools up for renewal in 2004 found problems at all seven, including conflicts of interest at a charter founded by the wife of State Rep. John Perzel, the powerful Northeast Republican who was then speaker of the House.
Government's education policy is self-defeating, academics warn
The Independent
The drive to reform Britain's education system, with frequent shifts in policy and the added burden of targets, is self-defeating and "working against the Government's own intentions", leading academics have warned ministers.
In Defense of Testing Series: NIST Assessment of the U.S. Measurement System
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently released a new report, An Assessment of the United States Measurement System: Addressing Measurement Barriers to Accelerate Innovation (NIST Special Publication 1048). The report is available at usms.nist.gov and consists of 68 pages for the main report plus nearly 1,000 pages of appendixes. An eight-page "in brief" summary is also available.
Living Literacy: A Cycle of Life to Text and Text to Life
Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski
In a December 2007 New Yorker article, "Twilight of the Books," author Caleb Crain laments the decline of literacy in the United States, citing a number of studies indicating, "Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability." Crain reports that, "readers are more likely than non-readers to play sports, exercise, visit art museums, attend theater, paint, go to music events, take photos, and volunteer.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
BCCT Citizen Scholars
Congratulations to all of the Lower Bucks citizen scholars from the class of 2008, but special congratulations to Morrisville's own Matt Miller and Michael Tribbey.
Matthew Miller
Morrisville Middle/Senior High
Class rank: 1 of 69
Achievements: National Honor Society; Rotary Club Student of the Month; perfect attendance award; student government; class officer; 21st Century Interact Club; Ski Club; baseball; football; soccer; student forum; Future Business Leaders of America; chemistry award.
Community service: Nominated for Teen Volunteer of the Year; Earth Day delegate; organized a Powder Puff football fundraiser; organized Love Ashley fundraiser; Dr. Seuss reading program volunteer; Winterfest volunteer; Senior Citizen service; Martin Luther King reading presentation.
Counselor’s comments: Matthew is very active in school and his community. He has taken leadership roles on service projects and athletics.
Michael Tribbey: Morrisville Middle/Senior High Class rank: 6 of 69 Achievements: National Honor Society; student representative to the school board; chorus, Chamber Choir; Drama Club; soccer; bowling. Reading Olympics; 21st Century Learning Club. Counselor’s comments: Michael is very creative.
Matthew MillerMorrisville Middle/Senior High
Class rank: 1 of 69
Achievements: National Honor Society; Rotary Club Student of the Month; perfect attendance award; student government; class officer; 21st Century Interact Club; Ski Club; baseball; football; soccer; student forum; Future Business Leaders of America; chemistry award.
Community service: Nominated for Teen Volunteer of the Year; Earth Day delegate; organized a Powder Puff football fundraiser; organized Love Ashley fundraiser; Dr. Seuss reading program volunteer; Winterfest volunteer; Senior Citizen service; Martin Luther King reading presentation.
Counselor’s comments: Matthew is very active in school and his community. He has taken leadership roles on service projects and athletics.
Michael Tribbey: Morrisville Middle/Senior High Class rank: 6 of 69 Achievements: National Honor Society; student representative to the school board; chorus, Chamber Choir; Drama Club; soccer; bowling. Reading Olympics; 21st Century Learning Club. Counselor’s comments: Michael is very creative.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Comic Relief
Democracy (and the Morrisville School Board), as explained in Real Life.
Any Morrisville voters feeling a bit like sushi right now?
Any Morrisville voters feeling a bit like sushi right now?
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