Pottstown at the center of fair education funding fight
By Evan Brandt, The Mercury
POTTSTOWN >> Ground Zero in the fight for fair education funding this week has been 750 N. Washington St.
That’s the address of Pottstown High School and the place where the action has been in the last 24 hours.
First there was the special Superintendent’s Forum Tuesday night that featured the provocative question — “Why Are My Taxes So High?”
The next morning the school was the Montgomery County location for a series of statewide press conferences calling attention to Pennsylvania’s rank as the worst in the nation ...
School superintendents coordinate to plead for state funding help
GARY ROTSTEIN
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
grotstein@post-gazette.com
The ability to educate public school students is increasingly hampered by spiraling mandated costs for pensions, special education and charter and cyber schools, which dwarf the size of modest funding increases anticipated from the state, according to a group of Western Pennsylvania school superintendents.
The heads of 10 diverse districts joined at West Mifflin High School Wednesday to plead their case that the current system of funding basic education in Pennsylvania is unsustainable and that ...
Pottstown Schools Host Forum on School-Funding Formula
Pottstown Schools Host Forum on School-Funding Formula
From the Reading Eagle, May 31, 2017
State funds - which make up roughly 34 percent of school district funding - are distributed in a way that does little to minimize the disparities, although Pennsylvania's new fair funding formula was implemented last year with an eye to doing just that, said Michael Churchill, another staff attorney at the Public Interest Law Center.
The new formula awards state funding based on several factors, including the number of students living in poverty, learning English as a ...
For Immediate Release: EQUITY FIRST – “END SCHOOL FUNDING DISCRIMINATION”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 30, 2017
EQUITY FIRST - "END SCHOOL FUNDING DISCRIMINATION"
2017 Agenda Asks Governor Wolf and General Assembly to End the Nation's Worst School Funding Discrimination in Basic Education and Special Education Funding
(Harrisburg, PA) – May 30, 2017 - Two (2) years after the historic adoption of the bipartisan funding formulas for Basic Education and Special Education, shockingly, only 6% of Basic Education funding and 8% of Special Education funding are running through the adopted new funding formulas. These measures result in massive ...
Editorial: Demand state change school funding inequities
POSTED: 05/07/17, 11:12 PM EDT | UPDATED: 1 WEEK, 3 DAYS AGO
Brandt reported on two recent studies which analyzed school funding under the current application of the so-called fair funding formula. The results paint a startling picture of discrimination.
Not only were poorer districts getting less than their fair share, the less white a poor district was, the worse the inequity.
“On average, the whitest districts gets thousands of dollars more than their fair share for each student, while the least white districts get thousands less for each student than their ...
Opinion: Focus outrage on public school funding formula
By Merlyn Clarke
Interpreters of Greek mythology suggest that when Pandora opened her famous box, her intent was purely innocent, driven by honest curiosity, but nevertheless resulted in introducing evil into the world. The Judeo-Christian take on this event substitutes knowledge for evil. One could argue that the adoption of the fair funding formula for distributing education dollars approximates both interpretations. Developed by well-meaning legislators and administrators determined to rectify the irrationalities of basic education funding in Pennsylvania, it has ...
STROUDSBURG SCHOOL BOARD PASSES RESOLUTION SEEKING FAIR FUNDING FOR All BASIC EDUCATION FUNDING
For Immediate Release: June 22, 2016
(Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) – Equity First reports, The Board of School Directors of the Stroudsburg Area School District recently voted to adopt a resolution to clarify intent of what the Pennsylvania School Board Association (“PSBA”) deems “fair funding”.
The PSBA’s Core Legislative Principles and supporting concepts outlines in its ‘Funding Formula’ section that “Pennsylvania must develop and maintain a system of public school financing that emphasizes a sharing of costs between the commonwealth and local ...
Where PA stands – One Year After the Release of the BEFC Report…
It's that time of year – kids are just out of school and school boards voting on tough decisions for next year’s school budgets.
This week, the news was riddled with articles of school boards voting for tax hikes, program cuts, teacher reductions staff eliminations, and ending kindergarten classes!
* Hazleton Area SD in Luzerne County voted to cut all kindergarten to half days, and eliminate 30 teaching positions. They even voted to reduce school weeks to four days in the months of December, January and February to offset expenses. And, they still would have ...
Rep. David Parker Issues Statement
Recently, two statewide organizations with missions pledged to support the highest ideals of Pennsylvania K-12 education, took an opportunity to widely misrepresent my proposed legislation, House Bill 2111, and Equity First, the noble effort to help 900,000 children get fair Basic Education funding faster than 25 years from now.
It's deeply disappointing to learn statewide organizations are spending time, energy and resources to prevent 900,000 students from receiving their fair share of the state's $5.8 Billion distribution of Basic Education Funding. Since 1991, too ...
PENNSYLVANIA KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS PUNISHED
June 10, 2016 (Harrisburg, PA) - With the Governor's swift pen 900,000 students, most in the poorest, struggling school districts in the nation will remain underfunded for more than twenty-five (25) years. For Kindergarten students at 150 school districts statewide, they will remain underfunded for their entire K-12 education, punishment by their zip codes.
While 350 over-funded school districts have celebrated the recent passage of House Bill 1552, the Basic Education Funding formula, Kindergarten students in more than 100 school districts won’t experience fair-fun...