Pennsylvania is facing a new fiscal reality and Gov. Corbett's educational priorities and budget reflect his new thinking. Whether you agree or not, the game has changed.
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Pennsylvania Children to Achieve Their Full Potential
Educational Budget Priorities
- PreK-12 Education – More than $8.6 billion in state funding for direct support of public education.
- Basic Education Subsidy – $5.2 billion in state funds, including $104.8 million to implement a student-focused funding approach to assist districts to advance student achievement.
- Special Education – $1.03 billion in state funding for special education programs.
- Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts – $83.6 million for pre-kindergarten.
- Early Intervention – $198.1 million in state funding, which is a $16 million, or 9 percent, increase to serve an additional 1,500 children.
- Higher Education Programs – $1.25 billion in total funds, including $381 million in the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency for the Grants to Students program for students seeking financial assistance for higher education opportunities.
- National Guard Tuition Assistance – $7.2 million in new funding to continue Educational Assistance Program tuition grants for members of the Pennsylvania National Guard enrolled at degree-granting colleges.
This is no less the case with education and education spending. The presumption of a steady, unbroken stream of revenue increases is no longer a valid organizing principle. Funding systems must be realigned to more directly support students and their learning needs and education dollars made more portable, as well as unbundled, to put greater control and decision-making into the hands of students and families. Educational choices are expanding as are new ways to train, compensate and measure the effectiveness of teachers and leaders.
Shifting as well is state government’s traditional command and compliance mindset as the focus instead turns to standard and goal setting coupled with efforts to empower schools and districts with greater freedom and flexibility to more effectively manage during this period of disruptive change. Eliminating wasteful spending practices and mandates that drive unnecessary spending serves to increase available funding by freeing up dollars that can then be redirected to support students and classrooms. Likewise, new accountability systems that provide taxpayers greater transparency into performance and control over spending can only improve the quality of our public schools and public support for them.
Expand Quality Educational Options for Families and Students
• Provide Choices for Students Attending Failing Public Schools – Make funding available for students trapped in failing schools to enroll in achieving schools.
• Improve Dual Enrollment Opportunities – Unbundle education funding in order for high school students to have the opportunity to use a portion of their basic education dollars to earn post-secondary credit through dual enrollment.
• Grow the Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) – Restore the cuts made to the EITC and raise the total credits available to $75 million to increase the amount of scholarships, programs and advanced learning opportunities this resource provides to Pre-K through 12th grade students in public and private schools.
• Enhance Charter School Quality and Accountability – Strengthen ethical and performance standards and establish an independent charter school board to enhance the performance of charter schools and provide more students with the ability to pursue learning opportunities that are better suited to meet their needs.
Maximize Flexibility and Mandate Relief for Local School Districts
• Allow Economic Furloughs – Allow districts to retain the most effective instructional personnel without regard for seniority when economic furloughs are necessary.
• Increase Bid Size Limits – Restructure the current thresholds for competitive bidding requirements to alleviate excessive processes and reduce costs.
• Restructure Advertising Requirements – Permit school districts to advertise via the Internet and community-based newspapers in lieu of the more expensive legal notices in broad-circulation newspapers to help control costs.
• Revise School Nurse Requirements – Change the current mandate that school nurses be certified by completing an additional certification course at a Pennsylvania college or university to permit districts to hire nurses who complete a program of in-service training in school nursing approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
• Align Public School Requirements with Charter Schools – Relieve additional mandates placed on public school requirements to allow the schools to operate with increased efficiency.
• Embrace Performance-Based Accountability – Reduce barriers to improvement and innovation and reward instead of penalize achieving schools for reducing costs and increasing productivity.
Promote Effective Teachers and Leaders
• Launch Merit-Based Pay Systems – Incentivize excellence for teachers by incorporating student achievement data and results into evaluations that are tied to compensation received in addition to base pay.
• Initiate Tenure Reform – Review benchmarks that measure long-term teacher effectiveness and implement a permanent rating system.
• Create Alternative Certification Options – Expand alternative pathways to teaching by allowing field professionals and other qualified individuals to enter the profession through approval by the Department of Education.
Accountability and Greater Control of Education Spending for Local Taxpayers
• Voter Approval for Property Taxes – Reform must seek to rebuild the faith of Pennsylvania taxpayers in our education finance system. Under current law, exceptions for local school districts to avoid a taxpayer vote on school budgets have become the rule and real voter control over education spending the rare exception. School spending and budgets must be made more transparent and more clearly demonstrate the effective use of precious tax dollars. This budget proposes subjecting local school budgets to voter approval for any spending increases required above increases for inflation.
• Property Tax Relief – $781 million in continued property tax relief in 2011.
Highlights of the overall budget, CLICK HERE
