School advocates prepare to defend funding boost

August 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

HARRISBURG

If, as expected, Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders start talking next week about scratching almost 1 percent out of Pennsylvania’s $28 billion budget, the billions the state sends to public schools for instruction and operations will be Target No. 1.

After all, the K-12 school subsidy got a substantial increase — $250 million, or 4.5 percent — at a time when recession-ravaged tax collections and a Legislature unwilling to raise taxes demanded belt tightening in many, if not most, programs.

That $250 million increase that Gov. Ed Rendell insisted upon in the budget he signed last month lines up neatly with the approximate size of the budget gap expected from a recession-related federal-aid package that was smaller than officials had hoped it would be.

Education advocates know the hatchet may be coming to the $5.8 billion that’s budgeted and are preparing their defenses. They say they recognize that budget makers are hounded by a long list of groups competing for state taxpayer money but maintain that education of children is the most important.

With the Rendell administration working to increase the state’s share of public-school funding, “to cut the state appropriation now would take us backward,” said Ron Cowell, president of the Harrisburg-based nonprofit advocacy group, Education Policy and Leadership Center.

A U.S. Census report in June became the latest in a long line of reports that underscored Pennsylvania’s below-average public- education spending, ranking the commonwealth 31st in state tax dollars spent per pupil in the 2007-08 school year.

At about $5,200 per pupil, Pennsylvania ranked behind each of its neighbors but above several high-population states, including Texas, Florida, Illinois and Georgia. Historically, Pennsylvania supplies less than 40 percent of school spending. Nationally, the average is near 50 percent, the Census said.

As a result, the majority of school funding comes from whatever districts can raise, putting students in poor districts — where there’s a shallower pool of wages and property values — at a huge disadvantage.

Even though the state runs its tax dollars through a formula that favors poor districts, the pure amount is too modest to overcome the disparities caused by differences in local wealth, Cowell said.