FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 1, 1999
CONTACTS: Timothy Potts, Director, Pennsylvania School Reform Network
(717) 238-7171, tpotts@elc-pa.org
Marty Strange, Director, Policy Program, Rural School and Community Trust
(802) 728-4383, marty.strange@ruraledu.org

Pennsylvania School Reform Network
Gets Major National Grant

Harrisburg, PA -- The Pennsylvania School Reform Network (PSRN) today announced that it has been awarded up to $450,000 over three years in grants from the Rural School and Community Trust to educate rural Pennsylvanians about the unfairness of Pennsylvania's school funding system and to work toward solutions.

The Rural Trust administers a $50 million challenge grant, provided by former Ambassador Walter Annenberg in 1995, to improve rural education. Under terms of the Annenberg challenge, PSRN must match the grant by raising an additional $450,000 for the effort by June 30, 2000.

"Pennsylvania's current school funding system harms both rural students and the communities where they live," said PSRN Director Timothy Potts.

"The state's 25-year history of under-funding public schools has created a vicious cycle in rural areas. Low state funding means constantly cutting corners on educational quality plus high local taxes. High taxes depress the economy. And a depressed economy causes young people to leave their hometowns in search of opportunity, fragmenting the families that are the strength of rural Pennsylvania," he said. "In addition, under-funded schools mean that students are without the facilities, equipment and other resources that they need in order to achieve at high levels."

PSRN will use the Rural Trust grant to aid communities who want to create local "Partnerships for Fair Chance Schools." These will be locally owned and operated partnerships of business, human service, church, civic, and other organizations and individuals that will work for greater local accountability and a better approach to state funding.

According to Potts, the goal of the partnerships is to "give every student a fair chance to learn, and every school a fair chance to teach, what is already available in the best public schools of the Commonwealth."

Marty Strange, director of the Rural Trust Policy Program, said that Pennsylvania has been particularly slow to correct the imbalance in its school funding system.

"Most other states have recognized the need for equal educational opportunity for urban and rural children and have worked through their legislature and courts to achieve it. Pennsylvania's failure to resolve this issue is especially damaging to rural people because there are more people living in rural communities in Pennsylvania than in any other state," Strange said. "We are confident that the Partnership for Fair Chance Schools can help rural communities address the inequity their children face and help find solutions."

Now in its seventh year of operation, PSRN is a non-profit, non-partisan voice for improving public education, especially for rural and urban children who are poor, who have disabilities, and whose native language is not English.

PSRN will have several allies in the effort. A statewide advisory group for the effort includes the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, the United Way of Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Community Providers Association, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, the Keystone Research Center, the Pennsylvania Head Start Association, and other groups with ties to local communities.

According to figures released today by PSRN, the amount of the state budget dedicated to basic education has declined steadily for more than 20 years.

As recently as the last budget of Gov. Dick Thornburgh's administration in 1986-87, 38.2 percent of all state spending went for basic education. This year, the figure has dropped below 33 percent.

The difference, Potts said, is huge. "If basic education received the same share of the state budget today as it did when Gov. Thornburgh left office, local schools would have more than $1 Billion in additional state aid to improve the quality of the schools, cut local taxes, or both," Potts said.

The state's system of funding results in wide gaps between the resources available to educate children in some communities versus others.

The gap between spending in the 48 school districts with the highest student achievement on state reading, math and writing tests and the median school district, Canton Area in Bradford County, is $45,200 for every classroom of 25 students.

"That's $45,200 less available to educate the children in every Canton Area classroom, in every school, every year, than in the state's highest achieving schools," Potts said.

"In most rural school districts, the gap is even greater, depriving those students and schools of the ability to provide the quality education that is possible with more resources committed to improvements that have a track record of success," he added.

PSRN's goal for the first year of the grant is to work closely with community groups in six rural counties, expanding that number in the second and third years of the grant. So far, PSRN has helped local leaders convene meetings in Bedford, Centre, Jefferson, and McKean counties, with meetings in other counties in the planning stages.

Rural groups interested in joining the Partnership for Fair Chance Schools may contact PSRN at 717-238-7171 or psrn@elc-pa.org.