And the effort it will take to get to the top, he said, will most likely be a political effort.

Ultimately, the matter will be decided in the General Assembly and “you need 26 senators and 103 House members to agree to get legislation to the governor’s desk,” Feinberg said.

And legislators, he said, are motivated by two things — getting the money, and thereby the votes, they need to get re-elected.

Since there is so much “money to be made” in the charter school movement — which as a whole have not proven in 20 years of experimentation that they perform any better than public schools — figuring out how to overcome the money legislators crave for re-election is a reality reformers have to face, Feinberg said

The counter-balance to a well-timed campaign contribution, he said, is a grassroots groundswell from those harmed by Harrisburg’s arbitrary education funding, a groundswell like the one that denied Tom Corbett re-election and made him Pennsylvania’s first one-term governor in a generation.

“The timeline for action will depend on the money-versus-fear quotient,” Feinberg said, noting that looking at the correlation between campaign contributions and education votes can be unsettling.

And that’s why it is so important for rank and file voters to get involved, he said.

Legislators need to hear the message from chambers of commerce, and faith-based groups as well as education advocates and regular voters, he said.

And that is just the kind of coalition the Campaign for Fair Education Funding is putting together, a coalition which has more than 50 statewide organizations involved, said Feinberg.

Long experience struggling under the burdens of the system has made some Pottstown officials cynical.

“State legislators’ job is to get re-elected every two years, and they do” said Borough Council President Stephen Toroney.

And because of the money and politics involved, Pottstown students get shortchanged, said School Board Treasurer Mary-Beth Bacallao.

“It’s all too apparent to me, that because we don’t have a lot of money, Harrisburg believes that our children deserve less,” she said. “But our children deserve the same opportunities as a student in Lower Merion or Owen J. Roberts.”

Referring to a legislative task force created by Corbett that is charged with delivering an education funding formula to the legislature by June, School Board President Judyth Zahora said “sometimes I think this is just a diversionary tactic, something to keep us busy with churn work while nothing ever changes. We’re just a little piss-ant district with no money.”

Feinberg argued that the only thing that will convince legislators to act is the belief they could lose their seats if they vote against fair funding, and the only way to convince them of that is — to put it bluntly — to be in their face.

“Playing nice hasn’t done anything for us so far,” said Bacallao.

“The worst thing that happens is you have more educated public and legislators so you get the best result possible when the legislation goes through the sausage maker,” Feinberg said.

“How do you convince legislators to see their way clear to doing the right thing when they have dollar signs in their eyes?” Sparagana asked, answering his own question by adding “we have to decide we’re not going to put up with it anymore,” a remark which drew applause from the small audience.

“Now we just need to figure out how to get the attention of those nitwits in Harrisburg and get them to do the right thing,” he said.

“If they hear this message from enough people, they might begin to think their re-election is endangered,” said Feinberg.

If things don’t change, some school districts might be endangered, said Tina Viletto, director of legislative services and grants development at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit.

Pennsylvania provides, on average, only about 30 percent of the funding most districts need in a year. The national average is about 50 percent, said Viletto.

The rest has to come from local taxpayers and, in districts with thin tax bases like Pottstown and Pottsgrove, that means higher property taxes and fewer resources.

For example, the state will provide only 27 percent of the revenue for the draft $65.1 million Pottsgrove budget unveiled last week, contributing to the potential for a property tax hike of 3.5 percent.

Without a consistent funding formula that adjusts for their unique circumstances, districts that are struggling now — think Chester-Upland — may soon find themselves in the same boat as the York School District.

There, the state wants to take over the entire district and convert it into the only district in Pennsylvania run entirely by a charter-school provider, said Viletto

Without a formula, districts represented by the chairpeople of powerful committees mysteriously receive disproportionately more state funding, no matter what their demographics and needs are, as happened in the last budget, Feinberg said.

And without a formula, Viletto said, the only thing districts can count on is something called “hold harmless,” which means they will get at least as much money as they received the previous year.

But does that make sense in districts whose student population is dropping?

It doesn’t make sense to districts like Spring-Ford and Perkiomen Valley, which are seeing more and more kids in their classrooms each year, Viletto said.

Viletto said Perkiomen Valley officials took their concerns “on the road in a campaign” and began lobbying legislators for the establishment of a formula that takes into consideration things like student population, relative district wealth, poverty levels, special education and non-English speaking population — all of which have an inordinately high effect on the test scores and school performance profiles which Harrisburg and Washington, D.C. hold in such high regard.

Pennsylvania has had funding formulas before — most recently from 2008 to 2011 — and when that was in place, said Sparagana, Pottstown received more state resources and its test scores rose.

“What happened to that formula?” Sparagana asked.

“There was an election,” Feinberg replied.

Then the fair funding issue has to be a factor in the next election, said school board member Ron Williams, who helped arrange Thursday night’s discussion.

“We all have to keep in mind that we’re talking about our children,” said Williams. “If we take no action, then we’re failing our children.”

Taking action takes time, Zahora said, adding she doesn’t have enough.

Luckily, Roxy Barnebey does.

With the Public Citizens for Children and Youth and Family Services, Barnaby said she is in charge of the group’s focus in Montgomery County and that she can help with advocacy.

“This is the first time we’ve had someone who has offered to help,” Zahora said.

The efforts need to be undertaken, board member Amy Francis said, because there is no other option.

Legislators “are only immune to us and our efforts if we allow them to be,” she said.

Feinberg sought to convince the officials that making those efforts is worthwhile by saying “our mission is to make informed American citizens, and that’s something worth getting out of bed for.”

Subsequently, the board unanimously approved a resolution provided by Feinberg which, among other things, “supports the development of a system of public school financing that addresses the needs of school districts and students, and establishes a school funding formula that is equitable, adequate, comprehensive and consistent.”

Mercury News – January 31, 2015 – Read article online