Posted on 02/19/2023 7:13:22 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
From the hardscrabble hills of western Pennsylvania to the hardknock blocks of Northeast Philadelphia, children are getting inferior educations in underfunded school districts with low property values and incomes.
Crowded classrooms in the state’s 100 most poorly funded districts deny children, who may enter kindergarten a year behind their more affluent peers, the attention they need. Those districts, including South Allegheny, East Allegheny, New Castle, Sharon and Philadelphia, educate one-third of the state’s 1.5 million students, two-thirds of its Black students, and nearly 60% of its poor students.
Leaky roofs, obsolete and unsafe buildings, and broken laptops plague many of those schools, as do outdated textbooks, curriculums and technology; restricted class options and harmful cuts in arts education; insufficient support for special education, math and reading instruction; and shortages of certified counselors, social workers and mental health resources. The pandemic exacerbated inequities, as poor districts often lacked the technology to quickly and effectively pivot to online learning.
No one in the Commonwealth is immune from these ravening inequalities that have, over generations, crushed or constricted the potential of millions of students. They have and continue to exact enormous criminal justice and social service costs, as well lost productivity and jobs.
Median per-pupil spending averages about $15,000 a year in Pennsylvania. Owing to an excessive reliance on local property taxes, however, the gaps between the wealthiest and poorest districts — averaging nearly $5,000 per-student — are the nation’s widest. State funding, totaling $7.4 billion a year, provides only a third of local school budgets. Only a handful of states provide less.
Shortsighted politicians in Harrisburg have ignored these disparities for decades, putting the state’s future at risk. Now, they must act.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Because Robin Hood worked so well here in Texas. /s
HOW MUCH DO PENNSYLVANIA TAXPAYERS SPEND ON PUBLIC EDUCATION?
Pa.’s spending is significantly higher than the national average. The last available national data is from 2016-17, when Pennsylvania was spending $17,800 per student compared to the national average of $14,000.
This is 24% higher than per-pupil spending at Pennsylvania charter schools, which is around $15,000. ...
Meanwhile, average private school tuition in Pennsylvania is $11,570 this year. ...
Throwing money at education problems solves nothing. New York and Washington, D.C., spends the most per capita and kids come out totally illiterate.
It’s a bit like having a mortgage that will never be paid off. I really hope they fix this, it’s insane.
Philadelphia spending per student is 170% of the statewide average.
I assume they are turning out a crop of Einsteins. That 80% of Philadelphia high school grads get into MIT.
According to the data given on the website below...
Philadelphia spemding per student: $26,000
Statewide average: $15,000
https://go2tutors.com/philadelphia-school-spending-per-student/
Retired urban public school teacher here. I faced a lot of problems in my career. But lack of funding was so far down on the list that it’s hardly worth mentioning.
Yes, I would have liked another demonstration laser, etc. But my number one problem was disruptive students, students whom the administrators did not care to discipline. Buckets of money won’t solve that problem.
There is also the problem of a bazillion ESL students sucking the life out of our budget.
The real estate taxes themselves are ok-ish. They have another class of taxes called “school taxes” that taxes real estate and is billed separately.
You also have a ton of tiny little school districts with one high school each that effectively does an end run around the national Republicans attempt to make schools more accountable for outcomes by letting students flee crappy schools.
If they just throw money at this, it will be a mistake. I suspect strongly that Pennsylvania is taking a lot of New York’s migrant overflow, just talking to people (when they speak English) a lot say they are from New York. Not any of the boroughs.
They need to introduce competition instead of letting some of these places turn into Lord of the Flies. I don’t think there is any political will to do that though. It’s a bit like the police departments, though there are glimmers of hope there as they are starting to pool their resources in order to increase their capabilities while cutting their costs.
Shapiro and his pal Krasner should both be moved into a jail cell.
Cut school funding in those districts in half and fill the schools with Asian kids and scores double. That is the reality.
Just give the teachers’ union a big raise and the problem will slink back into the shadows until the next raise is due.
EC
The last Governor of PA was a Democrat. Why wasn’t this fixed then?
“the hardscrabble hills of western Pennsylvania to the hardknock blocks of Northeast Philadelphia”
cliché much? They forgot “leafy suburbs”.
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