Oct. 21, 2014 – Pittsburgh | Good afternoon, my name is Cheryl Kleiman and I am a staff attorney with the Education Law Center in Pittsburgh. I appreciate the opportunity to appear in front of the Basic Education Funding Commission on behalf of the parents, students, and stakeholders we serve.
Author: elcadmin
Commission Gathers Feedback For Basic Education Funding Formula
Oct. 22, 2014 – By Deanna Garcia, WESA – A commission charged with examining the state’s basic education funding formula heard from a number of education officials at an Allegheny County hearing this week.
ELC Applauds Expanded Access to EI Services for Infants and Toddlers Experiencing Homelessness
Oct. 20, 2014 – For years, ELC has worked for expanded access to Early Intervention services for vulnerable children – including the estimated 6,000 Pennsylvania infants and toddlers (birth to 3 years old) experiencing homelessness. Many of these children suffer significant trauma and neglect – placing them at greater risk for developmental delays. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, trauma and poverty impact infants in unique yet substantial ways – often leading to lower learning capacities, maladaptive behaviors, and sometimes lifelong physical and mental health problems. Homelessness itself is a significant risk factor.
Continue reading
ELC Kicks Off New School Funding Campaign
Oct. 6, 2014 – The Education Law Center, along with more than 40 other organizations, today launched a new campaign for fair education funding for all of Pennsylvania’s K-12 public schools.
“ELC has been leading school funding reform efforts for years. This latest campaign reflects our long-standing commitment to providing all of Pennsylvania’s children — regardless of where they live — the resources necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond,” said ELC Executive Director, Rhonda Brownstein, a founding member of the campaign, and one its executive committee members.
The campaign has the support of more than 40 organizations throughout Pennsylvania representing educators, business, labor, faith-based organizations and civic and child advocacy groups who want to see Pennsylvania develop a predictable, sustainable and long-term solution to funding its public schools.
Cheryl Kleiman, staff attorney for the Education Law Center, is working with the campaign to engage Western Pennsylvania organizations and build cross-state consensus.
“We are excited about launching this campaign to ensure every public school has the resources it needs,” she said. “A fair, equitable and transparent funding formula will make a big difference for all Pennsylvania’s children – especially our most at-risk students, who too often lack basic supports and services in their public schools. How we address that at the local and state level has tremendous implications for Pennsylvania’s future.”
The Education Law Center is the only statewide legal advocacy group whose mission is to ensure that all of Pennsylvania’s children have access to quality public schools, including poor children, children of color, children with disabilities, children in the foster care system, English Language learners, and other at-risk children. For more information about ELC’s work and its role in the Campaign for Fair Education Funding, please contact Cheryl Kleiman at 412-258-2120 ext. 357.
Casey, nurses stress need for health professionals in schools
Sept. 8, 2014 – By Taunya English, Newsworks – With the deaths of two Philadelphia schoolchildren still in the news, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is proposing more funding for school nurses.
ELC Joins New School Funding Campaign
Aug. 28, 2014 – The Education Law Center has joined a statewide coalition of more than 40 organizations representing educators, business and labor leaders, faith-based organizations, civic and child advocacy groups who want to address one of Pennsylvania’s most important and challenging issues: the funding of its public schools.
Debate on fair formula for Pa. education has local flavor
Aug. 23, 2014 – By Evan Brandt, The Mercury – The effort to find a fair formula for funding education in Pennsylvania is coming to Montgomery County.
Last Sunday, Gov. Tom Corbett addressed the issue during an unannounced visit to Pottstown, and on Thursday, The Mercury learned that state Rep. Mike Vereb, R-150th Dist., who heads up the education funding formula commission, intends to hold one of the meetings somewhere in the Perkiomen Valley School District.
The Basic Education Funding Commission held its second meeting Wednesday in Harrisburg and Vereb says he wants to meet in different parts of the state to be sure regional issues are included in the discussion.
The next meeting will be in the Lehigh Valley, followed by one in the Perkiomen Valley and one in Philadelphia, he said.
Having organized itself at its first meting last month, the commission — which is charged with making a recommendation for an educational funding formula by next June — got down to business last week.
“We’re starting to get into the meat and potatoes,” Vereb told The Mercury.
It’s a meal made of data — and quite a bit of it — Vereb said.
According to published reports, Wednesday’s meeting included a quick appetizer of debate on the “hold harmless provision;” a helping of history from the executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, who outlined the different formulas Pennsylvania has used over the years; a side dish of the factors that go into determining how much each district should get; and a basket of how a district’s “wealth” should be determined and even a desert of asking whether whether funding should follow the teacher instead of the student.
“Yesterday was all a bit overwhelming, there’s a lot of information to absorb,” Vereb said.
“How do we look at it?” Vereb said of education funding. “Do we look at it on a per-student basis; on a per-classroom basis? on a per-school-district basis?”
Corbett is on the same page.
Standing in Riverfront Park on the banks of the Schuylkill River, Sunday, Corbett boiled the question down to an even more basic point.
“What is fair funding is the question,” Corbett told The Mercury. “What’s the formula and how do you do it?” he asked, pointing to the same questions Vereb asked.
“Remember, a school district has its own money, but the school districts are the ones who negotiate contracts with all the unions, the state isn’t there for that,” Corbett said.
“So you have to be careful when you talk fair-funding formula, because if a school district negotiates a generous contract, are they going to be looking to the state for more money than what the ‘fair funding formula’ is?” Corbett asked. “And that’s kind of what I see as part of the problem over the years.”
There are other problems certainly.
Vereb noted that the “hold harmless” provision — which guarantees a district will not receive less state funding than it did the year before, even if its enrollment is shrinking — may be harming “growing districts like Spring-Ford, Perkiomen Valley and even Methacton which aren’t getting increases to match their larger student populations.”
But that provision won’t go quietly.
Clarion County Republican Donna Oberlander, R-63rd Dist., who is also a member of the commission, announced she would vote against any formula that removes that provision on which the rural school districts she represents depend. She said her opinion is shared by “a large contingent” of the House Republican Caucus, according to a report by Capitol Wire.
But Vereb warned against that kind of parochial thinking.
Again echoing Corbett, Vereb said “we want to make sure the people on the commission are geared toward the best solution for everyone and not just looking out for their own districts.”
Corbett also warned against that tendency among legislators.
“Each legislator, the first thing they look at is the funding for their schools and see how their schools are going to be affected when they’re looking at how they’re going to vote on budgets,” he told The Mercury.
“We’ve got to end up with a result that can get 102-26 and one; 102 votes in the House, 26 votes in the senate and the governor’s signature,” Vereb said.
“If we’re really going to fix this, we’re going to have to look at everything, and what can work for everyone and what can get adopted,” Vereb said.
One path toward that goal could be to look at what other states got adopted, something Vereb pledged the commission will do.
“We want to look at what other states do sure, what works, what doesn’t,” said Vereb. “We’re not operating in a vacuum here.”
Luckily for the commission, that path has a map — a report issued last February by the Education Law Center — that looks at what factors other states considering in their education and how they compare to Pennsylvania’s practices.
The comparison isn’t pretty.
The national average for state education funding is 44 percent, whereas Pennsylvania currently provides only 35.8 percent.
“Only nine states contribute a lower percentage of state education than Pennsylvania,” the report’s authors wrote.
It also notes that Pennsylvania’s previous funding formula — based on the costing-out study — “was, in fact, similar to the one many states are now using. The formula measured the number of students in each district, community poverty levels, and local tax effort, allocating relatively more funding to districts that are larger, are poorer and have higher property taxes.”
According to the study, “30 states, including New York and New Jersey,” factor low-income students into their formulas.
In fact the report identifies 10 different factors used in states across the nation.
They are:
• Accurate student count;
• Weighting for low-income students;
• Weighting for students with disabilities;
• Weighting for English language learners;
• Per-student base cost;
• District poverty;
• District cost of living;
• District local tax effort;
• Small district;
• Adequacy target.
Two states — Virginia and Texas — use all those factors in determining state funding levels. Maine uses nine out of 10.
In the Northeast, New York uses eight; Maryland uses eight; New Jersey uses seven.
Even Alabama and Mississippi, which perennially rank at the bottom of the nation in educational achievement, use two and three of the factors, respectively.
Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that uses none.
“I think a lot of people think it’s very easy, you know just come up with a formula” said Corbett. “It if was just a formula, say X amount per student? But a lot of people wouldn’t agree with that as soon as they start looking at the detail.”
ELC Applauds Pittsburgh Public Schools’ New Code of Student Conduct
Aug. 5, 2014 – The Education Law Center applauds Pittsburgh Public Schools’ new code of student conduct, which reduces harmful zero-tolerance policies that disproportionally impact students of color and students with disabilities, while emphasizing greater protections and supports for English language learners, LGBTQ students, and parenting students. The PPS School Board adopted the changes at its meeting on Aug. 4, 2014.
The new policy will go into effect when school resumes later in the month.
Proposed changes in Pittsburgh schools’ student conduct code emphasize progressive and positive discipline
July 20, 2014 – by Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post Gazette – The board of Pittsburgh Public Schools will vote Wednesday on Code of Student Conduct revisions that replace zero tolerance with more discretion, incorporate ideas from a student-proposed bill of rights and provide explicit protection of students for sexual orientation and gender identity expression.
Cheryl Kleiman, an attorney with Education Law Center, which worked with the district on the proposal, said this version eliminates remaining zero tolerance policies and allows individual discretion.
ELC Statement on State Budget: Missed opportunity to address school funding crisis
UPDATED July 22, 2014
Governor Corbett’s 2014-15 state budget does little to address Pennsylvania’s systemic public education funding crisis.
“This budget was a missed opportunity for the legislature and the Governor — and a loss for public school students,” said Rhonda Brownstein, Executive Director of the Education Law Center. “There were several options for our state leaders to not only provide adequate funding to our schools, but to also enact cost-saving measures.”
The General Assembly pursued a fix to the state’s special education funding system that would have addressed the flawed approach to providing funding to students with disabilities in public schools — both charter-operated and district-run. The fix would have more accurately calculated costs and aligned resources to those costs, providing a significant savings to school districts throughout the state and ensuring that children with disabilities receive the services they need. Instead, the whims of political insiders thwarted that effort — resulting in a job half done that does not fix the admitted problem.
The effort to secure a consistent state revenue source for schools was also abandoned, leaving the legislature and Gov. Corbett to fall back on one-time funding schemes and last-minute deals to create a patchwork of public school funding that remains completely disconnected from the cost to provide all students with the necessary resources to meet the state’s academic standards.
“We cannot continue to rely, year after year, on political horse-trading and last-minute budgeting contortions that, ultimately, leave our schools lacking basic resources and leave our communities struggling to make up the difference with local revenues,” said Brownstein. “Our public schools require, and deserve, a thorough and efficient system — an actual system — of education funding as mandated by our state’s constitution.”
Op-Ed: More school nurses are needed to protect our children
May 28, 2014 – by Maura McInerney, Public School Notebook – Our hearts go out to the family, friends, fellow students,and teachers of Sebastian Gerena, the 7-year-old boy who died at Andrew Jackson Elementary last week. In the absence of a school nurse on duty (a nurse is present only on Thursdays and every other Friday), school staff called 911. We know they did everything they could with the resources they had to respond.
DN Editorial: Sick of it all
May 23, 2014 – Philadelphia Daily News Editorial – The death of any child is a tragedy. The death of two children who fell ill while at school is unspeakable. And while the cause of death for a first-grader at Andrew Jackson School has not been determined, both cases demand that we take a hard look at the impact the district’s budget realities may be having on children.
What happened to Bache-Martin School?
May 16, 2014 – by William Bender and Solomon Leach, Philadelphia Daily News – Fifth-graders have been sent to kindergarten. An eighth-grader was banished to first grade.
Draconian “behavior contracts” stipulate to whom certain children can speak and where they can eat breakfast.
These are among the incidents that have fueled concerns at Bache-Martin Elementary in Fairmount this year, and left parents asking: What has happened to our school?
Pennsylvania schools face funding, construction challenges
May 12, 2014 – Editorial, Allentown Morning Call – Pennsylvania faces a long-term challenge in public education and economic development. Current policies are defining the haves and have-nots statewide. It’s not good for students, and it’s bad for local economies.
However, the angst being heard in some communities may help to explain the election-year momentum and optimism for changes to public school funding in Harrisburg. With bills moving through the Legislature to address basic education funding and school construction, minds are changing all the way up to the governor’s mansion.
There are two foundational state funding streams that schools depend on — basic education funding for operations and school construction dollars.
Disability Advocates Call for Special Ed Funding Reforms
Action Item: Attorney Action Day for Education
Join fellow Philadelphia lawyers to tell City Council that Philadelphia cannot function without good public schools, and high-quality public schools require adequate funding.
Philadelphia’s schools can’t provide the basic programs and services our children need to have an opportunity to learn —class sizes have grown, counselors and nurses reduced, libraries closed. The local economy on which the legal community depends will continue to decline without a strong system of public education.
While the state education budget continues to be inadequate and inequitable, there are options to provide local funding. City Council can move on those options now, but needs encouragement to secure the resources necessary for our schools.
WHO: Leading Philadelphia Attorneys
WHAT: Take Action on School Funding
WHERE: Outside City Hall, North Broad Street entrance
WHEN: Thursday, April 24, 11:45 a.m.
RSVP today! http://www.eventbrite.com/e/lawyers-day-of-action-for-education-tickets-8171817125
The haves vs. the have nots
April 15, 2014 – by Julia Bergman, Axis Philly – Ask the average Philadelphian what their top concern is and they’re likely to say education.
The city has become a battleground for debates over fair and sufficient funding for public schools. At the forefront of that debate is what many consider debilitating cuts to education made by Gov. Tom Corbett.
Read the full story: http://axisphilly.org/article/the-haves-and-have-nots-of-education-spending/
Racial disparities in school discipline: A Radio Times discussion
March 31, 2014 – WHYY, Radio Times – New information released by the Department of Education shed more light on a disturbing difference when it comes to school discipline — minority students are suspended at a much higher rate than white students. The same applies to expulsions and harsher punishments and the problem is particularly acute in Pennsylvania. With more research to show that zero tolerance policies are ineffective, some educators are rethinking the whys and hows of school discipline.
WHYY’s Radio Times talks to Harold Jordan of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Deborah Klehr of the Education Law Center, and University of Pennsylvania education professor Matthew Steinberg about the issues around school suspensions, expulsions and even arrests, particularly when it comes to minority students.
Philly district orders school police to stay out of level 1 offenses
March 25, 2014 – by Kevin McCorry, Newsworks – Philadelphia School District has directed school police officers to stop responding to calls related to Level 1 student conduct offenses. The proscribed violations range from “failure to follow classroom rules” to “truancy” to “verbal altercations” to “inappropriate touching/public displays of affection.”
Action Item: Contacting Dept. of Justice about alternative ed discrimination
Based on the Education Law Center’s legal complaintthe U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into discriminatory placement of students in Pennsylvania’s Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth programs.
Continue reading