Every school district in Montgomery County has less state funding for K-12 this year than it did in 2011. That was the year PA stopped using an adequate and predictable formula to fund its schools.
The PA state legislature created the Basic Education Funding Commission in June to develop and recommend a new formula for funding schools based on several factors including relative wealth of school districts, local tax effort and student enrollment. But the commission is not required by state law to fully take into account the actual costs of providing children with a quality education.
At Thursday’s hearing at Perkiomen Valley High School in Collegeville, parents and teachers organized by Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) and the nonpartisan, faith-based organization POWER (Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild) joined together to urge the commission to consider the real costs of education when crafting its recommendations.
Donna Cooper, PCCY Executive Director, made the point that school districts in the area, including Perkiomen Valley, Methacton, Pottstown, Pottsgrove, Norristown, Souderton and Spring-Ford have raised property taxes every year for the last four years to make up for insufficient funds from the state.
“Ironically the very school district hosting this hearing has suffered from cuts to programs and rising property taxes. Only by crafting a fair funding formula based on the real costs of education can we create a predictable and viable way to fund our schools,” said Cooper.
The fact commission’s hearings are open to the public, but testifying is by invitation only. Faith-based leaders argued that for hearings to be truly “public,” parents and teachers should have the right to testify directly to the commission about the impact of underfunding on children and their schools.
“I am seeing how inequities in school funding are leading to my child and his peers not getting the resources or attention they need to thrive in their education,” said Rev. Dwayne Mosier, a parent in the Norristown Area School District and a pastor at Reformed Church of the Ascension. “Public education should not be a lottery in which children can get lucky – or not – depending on the zip code they are born in. My kids and everyone’s kids deserve an excellent education regardless of where they live. It’s my duty as a person of faith and a parent to make that message public.”
District superintendents from Norristown , Perkiomen Valley, Spring-Ford, Methacton, Phoenixville, Hatboro-Horsham and North Penn testified at the hearing. The commission is scheduled to issue a preliminary report in January.
Citizens Call – October 16, 2014 – Read article online