Pennsylvania: A State of Denial on School Funding -- Rural Policy Matters, Volume 2, Number 6 (June 2000)

On May 4, without public hearings and without the chance for parents and taxpayers to object or applaud, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a sweeping law called the Education Empowerment Act. As Gov. Tom Ridge signed the bill into law on May 10, legislative leaders admitted to the press that they rushed passage of the legislation to avoid an expected backlash from the public. In Pennsylvania, one party controls the governor's office and both chambers of the legislature.

The law contains two major provisions. One creates a system of takeovers for school districts where students perform poorly on state reading and math tests for two years. The other permits all school districts, regardless of how well they are performing, to request waivers of hundreds of school laws.

What the law doesn't do, however, is address the unfairness of Pennsylvania's system for funding public education. This year in its "Quality Counts" report, Education Week provided a preview of its new system for rating states efforts to provide equitable funding. Pennsylvania's system received an F. (See "A New Approach to Measuring Equity," by Greg F. Orlofsky in Quality Counts 2000, or visit http://www.edweek.org/sreports/qc00/templates/article.cfm?slug=equity.htm).

When the law takes effect in July, nine school districts will be required to create improvement plans that must be approved by the state and fully implemented within three to four years. Failure to achieve all of the improvement goals will result in a state "board of control" being appointed to replace the elected school board.

In two districts, including the Harrisburg School District, a board of control will be imposed immediately.

While all of the 11 districts are urban, they also have one additional factor in common: they are poor. Observers believe that it's just a matter of time before poor rural school districts also find themselves under the thumb of the state.

Takeovers
Boards of control have extraordinary powers. For example, they can declare any and all public schools to be "independent" schools (a term not defined in law) or charter schools and turned over to for-profit companies to operate. The boards -- or the for-profit operators -- can close entire schools, or substantial parts of schools, without public notice or public hearings. They also can operate without regard for many state laws designed to protect student health and safety, and can use taxpayer funds to build new schools that for-profit companies will own.

Waivers
The Empowerment Act permits all school districts -- not just the 11 districts under various degrees of state control -- to request waivers of hundreds of state laws and regulations. Among the laws that can be waived are:

a prohibition against school board members demanding and accepting gifts and donations from school district employees
the procedure allowing taxpayers to remove school board members who refuse to perform their duties
the requirement for accounts and meeting records to be open to the public
the requirement for notice of special meetings of the school board with limitations on the business to be conducted
the requirement for school construction work to be bid competitively and awarded to the lowest responsible bidder
the requirement for competitive bids for the purchase of equipment and supplies and to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder
the prohibition against bribing school directors to hire particular candidates as school administrators

Hidden Agendas
The Ridge Administration has already signaled that it expects school districts to use waivers to cut costs, which will allow the state to continue to provide a smaller and smaller share of the total cost of public education. In 1974, the state provided 55% of the total cost of public education in Pennsylvania; today the state share is about 35%, resulting in ever-increasing local property taxes, especially in rural areas where there is little other wealth to tax.

There also appears to be a corporate connection to provisions in the law. Several laws that can be waived -- for instance, the requirement for school funds to be deposited in school accounts with receipts and expenditures reported to the public monthly -- appear to be motivated by corporate convenience.

--- Tim Potts, Ezecutive Director, Pennsylvania School Reform Network, 717.238.7171

For a detailed description of Pennsylvania's takeover law, visit the web site of the Pennsylvania School Reform Network, http://www.psrn.org and click on the "Reports and Publications" page.