GOP Lawmakers Wary Over Education Plan
By Jan Murphy, The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa.
Jun. 25–It was like watching children visiting with Santa Claus when Gov. Ed Rendell came to Steelton-Highspire Elementary School last month.
He asked what members of that school community would do with the millions of new dollars that he proposes for the district under a new school funding formula.
The Steelton-Highspire crowd was not shy.
Expand preschool. Give signing bonuses to lure math and science teachers. Send more students to Dauphin County Technical School. Offer high school remedial reading.
In districts across the state, the governor has educators fantasizing about what they would do with the extra money Rendell proposes.
Rendell is proposing an additional $2.6 billion over the next six years. And he’s proposing changes in how the money is divided among schools, giving some schools big increases.
But the scope of the plan and the six-year commitment has Republican lawmakers saying, “Hold on.”
The proposal begins with a $291-million increase in aid for basic education for 2008-09 — the largest single-year increase in more than two decades.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, said the proposal “seems to be difficult enough without extending it multiple years.”
Lawmakers are willing to spend more on schools, but some would like a smaller increase.
Some Republican lawmakers — and some Democrats — said Rendell is being too generous to Philadelphia at the expense of other districts.
Philadelphia schools would get an extra $34 million, a 9.6-percent increase, in the 2008-09 school year. About one fifth of the state’s other 500 districts would receive an increase of 1.5 percent.
On Tuesday, House Republicans planned to propose taking the extra money for Philadelphia and divvying it up so districts would receive, at minimum, increases of 3 percent to 4 percent.
Northern Lebanon School District would benefit from that proposal.
Rendell’s budget would give Northern Lebanon a 2-percent increase in 2008-09.
“The message the governor is sending to Northern Lebanon is, be frugal with taxpayer dollars and your subsidy will be cut!” said Brian Wolfe, the school board president. “We have followed fiscally responsible methods over the years, which led to no tax increases for the last three. Unfortunately, our reward is the lowest state subsidy in our county, which has forced us to raise taxes for next year.”
Camp Hill School District officials can relate. The district would receive a proposed 2-percent to 3-percent increase in 2008-09.
Business manager Christine Hakes said that helps cover inflation, but it is not enough for new programs to improve student learning.
The Susquehanna Twp. School District would get an extra $250,000 in 2008-09, and nearly $3 million extra in six years, under Rendell’s plan.
Superintendent David Volkman said his first thought is to provide property tax cuts with the extra money.
“The immediate result would be a reduction in real estate taxes. There’s no two ways about it,” Volkman said.
Beyond that, Volkman would like to increase funding for special education and to explore extending the school day or school year to make sure students meet their yearly performance targets.
Volkman likes most parts of the proposed formula. He said it begins to address nearly two decades of inequities in the state’s distribution of education dollars.
What he doesn’t like is Rendell’s requirement that some money be targeted to specific programs.
“The money should be utilized by the district to address the range of programs we have and not be targeted to something that would be a new mandate,” Volkman said.
But as most kids who have visited Santa know, they never get everything they want.
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