City, school and union officials said they expect sub-par conditions in Philadelphia public schools to remain unchanged from last year without an infusion of cash from a cigarette tax bill that still needs state approval.

“Last September, our schools opened with a startling lack of programs and services for schoolchildren,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan said.

“Our schools still do not have an acceptable number of counselors, nurses, librarians or secretaries. Last school year was especially trying for students and staff,” he said.

Gov. Tom Corbett criticized Philadelphia’s largest teachers union this week for being a holdout in making concessions on school employee health care premiums, which are driving the district’s operating costs higher.

Jordan made no mention of Corbett’s comments but a statement was released by the organization’s state affiliate.

“The issue isn’t, as Tom Corbett claimed today, that Philadelphia teachers have refused to docilely accept massive pay cuts or that state lawmakers would not pass a bad pension bill that was panned by four independent analysts,” said Ted Kirch, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Federation of Teachers with 30,000 members. “The issue is Tom Corbett’s failure to support a tax on Marcellus Shale drillers or put an end to more than $2 billion a year in corporate tax breaks, which would provide both immediate and permanent funding for struggling schools in Philadelphia and around the state.”

“Unfortunately, our first day of school is in peril,” said School Superintendent William Hite Jr., who faced the panel of state lawmakers from Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs.

He warned a delayed opening for public schools was a distinct possibility but a number of developments needed to take place first.

The normal level of excitement and anticipation about the first day of school is tempered by uncertainty over an $81 million budget shortfall that could result in more than 1,000 layoffs, increased class sizes and further reductions in program and services, from special education and student bus transportation to school police, cleaning and maintenance.

The absence of recurring, sustainable funding would also impede the district’s ability to implement new research-based strategies and drive school improvements.

“I can say, unequivocally, our students deserve more, our students deserve better,” Hite said.

Returning students are also anxious about returning to school next month.

Philadelphia student union member Brian Burney, 16, who participated in a rally outside the Hyatt at the Bellevue office building as Gov. Tom Corbett held a press conference on Wednesday, said, “School doesn’t feel like school.”

Burney said he was skeptical about the news of a cash advance for the school district.

“What’s the point? It’s going to happen all over again,” said Burney, a sophomore at Benjamin Franklin High School. “The only way it will help is if we get a fair funding formula.”

Katherine Garcia, 17, a member of Youth United for Change who also attended the rally, expressed outrage over the school funding crisis, but said it has done nothing to diminish her appreciation for education.

“Either way, I’m angry, and I’m frustrated,” said Garcia, a rising sophomore at Thomas A. Edison High School. “I love school. I love learning. That’s always been instilled in me since I was younger.”

It was nearly a year ago that Hite asked the city for $50 million in emergency funding in order to open schools with the bare minimum of school employees.

After announcing a cash advance for the school district this week, Corbett urged state lawmakers on summer recess to return to work and hammer out an agreement on a local cigarette tax proposal in support of Philadelphia public schools.

“I expect them to address this issue as their number one order of business,” said Corbett, who cast public education funding as a nonpartisan issue.

Democrats fired back during a public hearing in City Hall later that morning.

“These kids are not Democrats,” said state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, calling out Republicans in the state House of Representatives. “They are Pennsylvanians.”

The public hearing, scheduled by Sen. Vincent Hughes, Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was intended to assess the impact of further delays on a cigarette tax legislation, which already has approval from the Philadelphia city council.

Corbett, who is a Republican, announced he was authorizing the advance of $265 million in funding for Philadelphia schools. “This will establish operational and fiscal control for the district,” he said.

However, school leaders and city officials said Philadelphia’s public schools need new recurring revenue, not a cash advance.

“The School District of Philadelphia does not, and will not have the necessary revenue to open our schools on time, and safely, and for the entire school year, and that’s unacceptable,” said Mayor Michael Nutter, who opened testimony at the City Hall hearing.

An affirmative vote, Hite added, would only allow the school district to maintain the status quo.

“No one would argue that was sufficient and adequate resources to provide students with what they need in our schools,” Hite said during the governor’s press conference.

“It would be the maintenance of inadequacy,” Nutter said at Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee at City Hall.

He called the level of programming and services in Philadelphia public schools last year a “disgrace.”

Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz said an increase in state funding for public education does not benefit schools in Philadelphia. He questioned why state lawmakers had not acted on a local cigarette sales tax already approved by the city council.

“This is a crisis that needs to be treated like a crisis,” Butkovitz said.

Local education advocates, including Public Citizens for Children and Youth, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center, said school leaders need to know sooner rather than later about whether they can count on revenue from the cigarette tax bill.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, said, “The superintendent needs to know this is a certainty by August 15th so that he can responsibly open the schools. The Philadelphia school district is under state control, it’s the governor’s job to deliver that certainty.”

School and city officials said chronic funding problems for Philadelphia’s public school district will go unresolved until the state puts a funding formula back on the books.

Michael Churchill, an attorney for the Public Interest Law Center for Pennsylvania, said, “Even with the cigarette tax, Philadelphia students will have $2,500 less per student than an average student in neighboring districts, and schools without basics like counselors, nurses and adequate textbooks.

“It is time the state legislature and governor end this blatant unfairness,” he said.

Corbett said reaching an agreement on a school funding formula that was fair for 500 school districts statewide was no easy task because there’s a range of competing interests based on where residents live.

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” he said. “Everybody has a different perspective.”

He noted residents in Philadelphia have interests that differ from Pennsylvania residents in Erie, the county seat of Erie County in the northeast region, or Johnstown, Cambria County, 70 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania is one of several states that do not have a formula for distributing state funding to public schools.

In the last three years, Nutter said the city increased school revenue allotment by $325 million. That is the equivalent of the combined budget for the city’s fire department, parks and recreation department and free library branches.

The Philadelphia Tribune – August 8, 2014 – Read article online