With high expectations and more than a mixed amount of trepidation, the long-awaited Costing-Out Study on the state of Commonwealth spending on public education was released last week. As Dan U-A has already posted, it quantifies why our state ranks at the bottom of the nation and maintains one of the country’s most inadequate and inequitable funding systems for its most valuable resource – our, yours and mine, children.

The study, commissioned by a bi-partisan committee of state legislators last spring and conducted for more than a half million dollars by a national firm which has done similar studies across the nation, determined that the average cost of educating a child in the state came to around $12,000. According to the study, the state underfunds public education by $4.8 billion. About 95 percent of the school districts – 474 out of 501 – are underfunded, Philadelphia by as much as 50 percent. What has often been billed as a Philadelphia complaint has now been proven to be a massive system of inequity and poverty that touches all but the wealthiest of districts in the Commonwealth.

The billion dollar question of course is not what the study says but what are we and our legislators going to do about it. This study can and should shake things up but it can also sit on a shelf along with plenty of other proof that injustice exists.

Hoping to emulate the many impressive YPP interviews before, I talked with Justin DiBerardinis, a proud Central H.S. graduate, who has spent the past two years criss-crossing the eastern region as an organizer for Good Schools Pennsylvania about what the study means and where we need to go with it.

Helen Gym: Hey Justin, you and I have been deeply engaged with this issue for years, but how would you best present it to a broader audience?

Justin DiBerardinis: What I would want to communicate is that with this study, we can finally move past the debate of whether we’re really spending enough, whether it’s really about the waste, or the students, or the teachers. I’m hoping that the study is what ends that argument once and for all.

HG: The argument, you mean, that we’re spending $2 billion in Philly and why can’t we make it work?

JD: Right. There still needs to be debate about how we’re going to spend our resources but the debate about whether we have enough resources is over.

HG: OK, so the question’s been answered but the problem is the reaction from legislators that the study is “pie in the sky” or it’s too overwhelming for a lot of legislators to even begin thinking about. (Note: The $4.8 billion is not expected to come entirely from the state. It’s supposed to be an overall lift based on increased local, state and other sources of spending)

JD: I think the first step is acknowledging that there is a funding problem, and that’s a sea change we are seeing in the legislature, both Republicans and Democrats. This funding crisis wasn’t created overnight and it won’t be solved overnight. It’s going to take years to get to adequate funding and high performing schools. The question is: are we going to begin that journey? The expectation for our legislators is that we want to see a significant down payment on that $4.8 billion in the next budget year.

Look out Alabama. We’re going for #43! (Note: PA currently ranks 44th in the nation in terms of state contribution to public education)

HG: A lot of people are familiar with Philly’s problems – the highest class sizes in the Commonwealth, school buildings falling apart, lower teacher salaries, lack of art, music and science programs. But what evidence of underfunding have you seen from other locales?

JD: You really don’t have to look far. I mean Allentown is a district that’s grown rapidly over the past years, with a lot of students needing English language instruction and there you see the same overcrowded classrooms, the same dilapidated infrastructure and a curriculum that’s just trying to catch up. District’s like William Penn and Upper Darby in Delaware County face a lot of the same challenges facing Philadelphia – increasing rates of children in poverty, children who are learning English and increasing rates of students with special needs. The study shows that all those districts are underfunded by thousands of dollars.

HG: So for readers who are unfamiliar with the actual funding formula, can you give a relatively brief primer?

JD: The problem with the PA funding system is that we don’t actually have a system. We do one of the worst jobs of funding our public schools in the nation. In terms of the state share of education costs, we pick up only 36% of the bill at the state level compared with a national average of about 52%. And the money that is distributed at the state level stems largely from head counts of children and demographics since 1992.

HG: Right, so it’s important to point out that the state abandoned a standardized funding formula back in 1992 and demographics have been frozen at enrollment numbers that are 15 years old. Since then, there’s been no actual funding formula. The advances we’ve made have largely been based on the work of Gov. Rendell creating a “foundation budget” for schools, but it’s not a calculated formula per se.

JD: We’re also completely overreliant on property taxes.

HG: Hold that property tax issue – taxes are big at YPP. A lot of people think education spending has improved dramatically under Rendell – if Philly’s benefited why mess with a good thing?

JD: Every year we’ve been able to move forward. Accountability block grants have targeted needy districts but the amount of work that still needs to be done is huge. Yeah, so state contribution has increased from 33% to36%, but we’re still way behind the national average. Meanwhile our kids are still suffering while we make slow progress. We need something major here and the costing out study gives us that blueprint.

HG: OK, now for the sexy part – taxes. Keep your clothes on. So there are plenty of people in this state nuts about their property taxes and completely disregarding of its sister issue, school funding. So how are we going to reconcile this singular desire on some voters’ parts to just see local property taxes reduced? How do you see that issue impacting this situation?

JD: What has to be understood is that property taxes and school funding are not discrete issues. One is a specific byproduct of the first. Property taxes have been increased at increasing rates to meet the demands of our local school districts because the state system hasn’t supplied the funding that’s needed. The solution to our property tax challenges in Pennsylvania is not a rebate but is really addressing how are public schools paid for and lessening the reliance on local wealth to fund our system of public ed.

HG: But the problem is that people want it now. They want their couple hundred dollars back and that’s it. Even the discussion around the casinos as a way to reduce property tax ignores the impact on public school funding, but it’s being promoted by the media and pols as separate issues. Isn’t that kind of thinking short-sighted?

JD: Look, growing districts need to react to the growing needs of that district. Whatever rebates we get will be consumed in the coming years – it’ll just be temporary relief. Until the funding picture is fixed and is actually based on the needs of the district, property taxes will continue to be raised to meet the growing costs of districts.

HG: Some people have suggested that we need to diversify the tax base, perhaps a mixture of income, sales and property taxes to fund schools.

JD: Clearly there’s an overreliance on property tax, which not only makes a system not just inadequate but inequitable because wealthier districts get more money for schools. Moving toward an income tax or sales tax would move it toward a state level, and the question then becomes is it being collected as a Commonwealth statewide, and is it being driven to the districts with the most need. I personally think that how the money is raised is a question for the politicians and legislators. What they need to hear is that we want a better system and it’s up to them – it’s their job—to find the best way to fund it.

HG: Hmmm. . . . you’re more optimistic than me. Don’t you think we need a clearer plan?

JD: I don’t know if it is our responsibility to set the priorities, and whether they come up with that money internally, whether they decide to raise a new revenue stream, and whether that’s moving income tax up – it will ultimately be their decision. Where is the bar being set? That’s the most important thing. Once we decide that more money needs to be spent, then that’s when the conversation about where we get the money begins in earnest.

HG: So we know PA is backwards, but what are some states that have actually figured something out?

JD: Many states – Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Maryland – have all undergone dramatic reform in recent years. Maryland had a highly inequitable school system, highly dependent on local property taxes. They had a costing out study in hand, and pushed for a new system of funding. They raised taxes, mostly sin taxes. They came up with money that in previous years had been spent in areas other than education. It was difficult, but we’ve seen dramatic improvements in equity and adequacy in the Maryland schools.

That’s also been combined with sustained grass roots efforts that made public education funding a priority. If the people aren’t demanding better schools, demanding a better funding system, our legislators will continue to give us the status quo.

We hear a large amount of negativity from legislators all the time. But we’ve seen so many other states in this nation doing it, and no, it wasn’t easy and there’s always opposition when you redirect money. But when a state and its citizens realize they need better public schools, those obstacles can be overcome.

HG: Legislators – who do you hope will step up?

JD: Leadership on this issue come from unlikely districts, such as Republicans from growing school districts. They realize that the present system doesn’t adequately address growth. Sen. Pat Brown from Allentown and Rep. Beverly Mackereth of York County come to mind. Rep. John Siptroth, who’s a Dem from Monroe County, recently introduced legislation to create a bipartisan commission to study the report.

HG: OK so what’s up with our Philadelphia legislators? It’s been painful not to see them wave the banner on this issue. Some of them have even been at various times ignorant, dismissive and downright defiant in improving public ed funding. And I don’t mean everyone – Tony Payton’s stepping up and I know that Dwight Evans and John Perzel are invested in education spending, though perhaps not in the same vein as some public ed advocates would like to see. But as a block, we haven’t seen them become the public ed funding champions we desperately need them to be.

JD: We know our Philadelphia legislators know there’s underfunding in their districts. We know they understand the need. The question is what are they going to do about it? Are they willing to take aggressive action? Can they hold up a budget to get this passed? Will they forge alliances with underfunded districts and growing suburbs to improve education spending? The ball is in their court, and I hope they seize it.

HG: With new City leadership coming in, what should the new Mayor and City leaders be doing?

JD: The mayor needs to be a regional leader, reach out to suburban communities and break out of the parochial mindset. There’s no sense in districts killing each other for the scraps when we should be setting the table so everyone can eat. There’s a great opportunity for Mike Nutter to use that study and find common cause with other cities and be a champion. We need him to step up and be a leader.

HG: To make what seems impossible possible.

JD: We can’t fight each other any more for these insufficient amounts. Public school education became a top issue in Maryland and other places and things moved forward. Things that were perceived as impossible were not. And if it can happen there, why can’t it happen here?

Contact Justin DiBerardinis at Good Schools PA at (215) 332-2700 or email him here.
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For more information:
Read the entire Costing-Out Study here.

Check out Good Schools PA’s website with more information here: http://www.goodschoolspa.org.

More resources available from the Education Policy and Leadership Center (http://www.eplc.org) and the Education Law Center (http://www.elc-pa.org/funding/funding.html).