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Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 22, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- NATIONAL STUDY:
SCHOOLS FOR POOR COMMUNITIES UNDER-FUNDED
By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia Less than a month before a special session of the
Pennsylvania legislature will consider reducing property tax, the main source of the state's school funding, a national study found that the difference in per-pupil spending between rich and poor districts in the state is the fourth highest in the country. The report by Education Trust, a nonpartisan group,
found
that the states of New York and Illinois had the greatest disparity in per-student funding. In New York state schools teaching the poorest students receive $2,152 less per student from state and local government sources than schools with the fewest needy students. The report also noted that New York state schools with the most students of color took in $2,034 less per student than those with the fewest. While New York has made some efforts to reduce its
funding
gap, Pennsylvania's has been growing as so-called reform policies have concentrated on privatization and "choice" vouchers, while fighting numerous lawsuits alleging that the state-funding formula discriminates against poor and students of color. The Education Trust report showed that Pennsylvania's per-pupil gap between districts with the lowest level of child poverty and those with the highest was $1,248. But it also concluded that Pennsylvania has one of the lowest state shares of total school spending: 38 percent. While refusing to address funding disparities, the
state has
insisted that all students and districts hold to the same high academic standards. Under the Educational Empowerment Act passed last year, Pennsylvania has taken over 11 low- performance districts, including Philadelphia, claiming they failed to meet state standards. While the state gave the Philadelphia School District an additional $80 million over its regular subsidy as part of the takeover, the city's per- student spending remains below the state average. In December the state replaced the Philadelphia
School Board
with a state-appointed commission that quickly moved to privatize several of the city's low-performance schools, despite widespread opposition. Students who protested the planned privatization, including blocking entrances to commission meetings, were threatened with lawsuits. Forty Philadelphia public schools are due to be
privatized
this fall. Twenty of these will be turned over to the financially troubled for-profit Edison Schools, Inc. The state has insisted that all $80 million of additional school aid go directly to the newly privatized schools, including Edison's. Opponents charge that this only serves to give the
private
schools an unfair advantage over the low-performance public schools. Lawsuits challenging the state's takeover charge that the deal seems designed to benefit Edison stockholders more than the district's students. Meanwhile, in the neighboring Chester Upland School
District, Edison just finished the first year of a five-year contract and is now laying off employees while asking the district for $2.3 million more in consulting fees. In early August Edison's stock closed at a new low
of 56
cents per share, compared to $38.75 in February 2001 when it first negotiated the Chester Upland contract. State takeover and privatizing schools will only
make the
funding situation worse. State officials, especially in the Ridge and Schweiker administrations, claim that how education money is spent is more important than how much is spent. But Kati Haycock, director of Education Trust, concludes that the country will never increase the academic performance of low-income and students of color unless the fund gap issue is addressed. "In too many states, we see yet again that the very students who need the most get the least," she said. - END -
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