After four years of deep budget cuts to public education, Pennsylvania’s New Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has proposed large increases in school funding, coupled with property tax reductions. However, the legislature is controlled by Republicans, and they oppose his plan.
Here are some articles from the website of the Keystone State Education Coalition, a valuable source of information about the state’s education issues.
How would Gov. Wolf’s proposed tax shifts affect you? Here are 8 scenarios
Penn Live By Teresa Bonner | tbonner@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on March 06, 2015 at 6:46 PM, updated March 07, 2015 at 6:59 AM
Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget is proposing to raise the state’s personal income tax from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent, increase the sales tax from 6 to 6.6 percent and broaden the number of items to which it will apply, and use the money raised from those tax increases to reduce school property taxes. His administration said most families will pay less under his plan, with the average family receiving a net tax decrease of about 13 percent. But the determination of who gains and who loses depends on several factors – income, whether you own or rent your home, which school district you live in, and how much you spend on taxable items each year.
To try to give a clearer idea of what effect the tax plan could have on an individual, PennLive calculated how large a reduction in homeowners in different school districts would see in their school property tax homestead exemption.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/03/how_would_wolfs_proposed_tax_s.html
Wolf Administration Denounces Senate Republicans ‘Just Saying No’ To Helping Schools
Governor Tom Wolf’s website 03/06/2015
Harrisburg, PA – The Wolf Administration today denounced a letter sent by the Senate Republican leadership to school districts across the state. The letter warned district superintendents to lower their expectations about the levels of funding to be provided by the commonwealth in the 2015-2016 budget. On Tuesday, Governor Wolf presented a budget proposal calling for the restoration of massive cuts made over the past four years to Pennsylvania’s struggling schools. The Senate Republicans’ response rejected this push for a historic reinvestment in education.
“Unfortunately, the Republican leadership is just saying no to challenging the status quo by putting forth the same old Harrisburg obstruction instead of real ideas to help Pennsylvania’s struggling public schools,” Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan said. “Governor Wolf has proposed a bold and expansive plan to reinvest in our schools and our economic future. The Governor called for robust debate and collaboration in his budget address. This is the opposite of that. This is a political stunt.” In contrast to the negative expectations being set by Republican leaders, Governor Wolf’s budget sets the table for historic investments in education. Over the last four years schools across Pennsylvania have suffered from $1 billion cuts that led to massive layoffs, huge property tax increases, and the elimination of valuable programs. The data also shows that as education classroom funding fell, so did student scores in reading and math.
http://www.governor.pa.gov/Pages/Pressroom_details.aspx?newsid=1593#.VPpmoPnF_wq
How would Gov. Wolf’s proposed tax shifts affect you? Here are 8 scenarios
Penn Live By Teresa Bonner | tbonner@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on March 06, 2015 at 6:46 PM, updated March 07, 2015 at 6:59 AM
Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget is proposing to raise the state’s personal income tax from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent, increase the sales tax from 6 to 6.6 percent and broaden the number of items to which it will apply, and use the money raised from those tax increases to reduce school property taxes. His administration said most families will pay less under his plan, with the average family receiving a net tax decrease of about 13 percent. But the determination of who gains and who loses depends on several factors – income, whether you own or rent your home, which school district you live in, and how much you spend on taxable items each year.
To try to give a clearer idea of what effect the tax plan could have on an individual, PennLive calculated how large a reduction in homeowners in different school districts would see in their school property tax homestead exemption.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/03/how_would_wolfs_proposed_tax_s.html
“About 400,000 Philadelphians live in poverty. That’s close to the total population of Pittsburgh and Allentown combined – the state’s second- and third-largest cities. It includes nearly four out of every 10 children in Philadelphia.”
Reducing poverty would benefit all Philadelphians
PHIL GOLDSMITH, FOR THE INQUIRER OSTED: Sunday, March 1, 2015, 3:01 AM
Phil Goldsmith has been managing director of Philadelphia and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia School District.
Several years ago, I offered to give a new resident of Philadelphia a tour of the city. She was grateful but declined. Having lived in the suburbs, she said she knew Philadelphia quite well. After some back and forth, it was clear what she knew was Center City. My tour included the other Philadelphia: the good, the bad, and the ugly. One Philadelphia is vibrant. New condos, ample restaurants, an exciting cultural scene, fashionable shops – something for every generation from millennials to baby boomers. The energy is palpable as you walk the streets – safely.
But there is the other Philadelphia, where poverty lives and gives birth to unemployment, crime, high dropout rates, and, worst of all, hopelessness. For many people, this part of Philadelphia is out of sight and out of mind.
So what does Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget mean for the average Pennsylvanian living in the Philadelphia area? Let me introduce you to two of my friends.
“About 400,000 Philadelphians live in poverty. That’s close to the total population of Pittsburgh and Allentown combined – the state’s second- and third-largest cities. It includes nearly four out of every 10 children in Philadelphia.”
Reducing poverty would benefit all Philadelphians
PHIL GOLDSMITH, FOR THE INQUIRER OSTED: Sunday, March 1, 2015, 3:01 AM
Phil Goldsmith has been managing director of Philadelphia and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia School District.
Several years ago, I offered to give a new resident of Philadelphia a tour of the city. She was grateful but declined. Having lived in the suburbs, she said she knew Philadelphia quite well. After some back and forth, it was clear what she knew was Center City. My tour included the other Philadelphia: the good, the bad, and the ugly. One Philadelphia is vibrant. New condos, ample restaurants, an exciting cultural scene, fashionable shops – something for every generation from millennials to baby boomers. The energy is palpable as you walk the streets – safely.
But there is the other Philadelphia, where poverty lives and gives birth to unemployment, crime, high dropout rates, and, worst of all, hopelessness. For many people, this part of Philadelphia is out of sight and out of mind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If we can’t motivate enough voters to turn out to get rid of the influence of the Koch brothers and Walton family wings of the GOP and the Bill Gates slice of the Democratic Party, then there is no way the country will turn around from the rot that permeates the agendas of these three profit-and-power driven ideologies that are obviously out to remake the United States into what the Koch brothers, Walton family and/or Bill Gates envision for the future. It is also obvious that what everyone else thinks doesn’t matter to them. Each of these oligarchies may have a different agenda, but if any of these three forces win, it is arguable that everyone else will lose.
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Lloyd have posted this before: Documentary: Park Avenue:money, power and the American dream-Why poverty? You can find it on youtube.
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I found it, and here it is.
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My wife and I are following this closely since she is a public school elementary life skills teacher in Philadelphia, I teach middle school in the suburbs, and we are both active in our unions, AFT and NEA respectively.
First, besides proposed new funding for public schools from Harrisburg, Wolf called for more charter school accountability and oversight, removed Bill Green who advocates for charters and is anti-Union from the SRC which is the state body running the Phila.SD, and is fighting against the charterization of the entire York City school district which is what the Republicans want. He has also appointed Pedro Rivera, formerly a Phila. Teacher and PFT member, and currently Lancaster SD superintendent, to be Education Secretary.
The Republican opposition to the new funding is not as simple as the usual refrain of no new taxes. The Senate Republican leader, Jake Corman, is a Tea Partier of the first magnitude, and he is making it clear that new funding and taxes on the frackers will be dependent on Wolf and the Democrats agreeing to privatizing Pa. Liquor stores (thereby removing a steady stream of revenue for the state, destroying thousands of union jobs, and likely increasing underage drinking in the state), and pension “reform”, meaning reducing the pensions promised to current state workers, including teachers, and forcing all new hires into a 401k type plan, which in the long run will mean the defunding and destruction of the current pension system. Sen. Corman apparently has no shame since he was in the legislature in 2001 and voted for Gov. Ridge’s bill which raised the legislator’s pension multiplier and permitted the state and school districts to defer their legally required payments into the state pension fund, the main reasons for the pension “crisis” today.
It will be interesting to see whether Wolf is able to withstand this kind of pressure and see his proposals to help the public schools through. It would be helpful if Democrats, especially on the national level, had his back, and you would think they would since Wolf is the lone newly elected Democrat governor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Obama has endorsed Rahm Emanuel, Duncan and and Sen. Murray are still pushing for standardized testing tied to teacher accountability, and Hillary Clinton is too distracted by her private email peccadIloes to say anything. Obama and company failed teachers in Wisconsin when they were no-shows during the recall of Walker and now that low life is about to make Wisconsin, the home of Robert M. LaFollette and Progressivism, a right-to-work state. I am awaiting the Washington Post’s editorial today lauding this move as another advancement in worker freedom, on the same day we remember Selma.
So, hats off to Gov. Wolf, but he is going to need a lot of help to get the funding our schools so desperately need.
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PA historically has a strong Public school system. “Wolf called for more charter school accountability and oversight, removed Bill Green who advocates for charters and is anti-Union from the SRC which is the state body running the Phila.SD, and is fighting against the charterization of the entire York City school district which is what the Republicans want.”
If Urban PA districts received adequate funding, would charter schools be necessary? Does PA need to continue to support charter schools that mostly perform the same or worse than the public school system?
Does PA need a dual school system or does the 1997 charter law need to be repealed?
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In answer to your questions, no, PA does not need a dual school system, but please, can we get the funding bill passed first?
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Yes! Agree Funding First. Will still need to address charters in PA.
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