HARRISBURG, PA – The leaders of Pennsylvania’s major statewide school leadership organizations are calling on the legislature to move swiftly to pass House Bill 1738, now in the Senate, and begin the process of establishing a fair, predictable way of providing adequate funding for education in all communities.
“Pennsylvania must treat public education as a bipartisan issue that has benefits for all children, regardless of where they live and attend school in this Commonwealth,” said Jim Buckheit, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators (PASA). “We haven’t had a fair, predictable way of funding education since 1991. It limits our children’s futures and it has hurt our state’s economy.”
Support for changing the way state education funds are distributed is building. Yesterday, Governor Tom Corbett said he agreed that school funding systems should be changed to “a true funding system” that is fair to all schools. The Governor’s statement came on the heels of Representative Bernie O’Neil’s bill to create a Basic Education Funding Commission being referred to the State Senate.
“In many parts of our state, school funding is not keeping pace with education needs and any increase needs to be distributed in a consistent way. District leaders cannot make the best decisions for schools and student without knowing what basic education funding will be,” said Nathan Mains, PSBA Executive Director.
Pennsylvania’s education leadership organizations – PASA, Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA), Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officers (PABSO), Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS), and the Central Pennsylvania Education Coalition – have joined in an effort to urge lawmakers to fix the finance disparities that have seriously undermined the mission of the state’s public schools.
“Geography should not determine a child’s destiny and a community’s economic future,” said Joseph Bard, PARSS Executive Director. “Every child has a right to a great education and every community needs support to develop the talents of its youth in order to ensure a vibrant future. We can no longer afford to pit communities against one another for basic education funding.”
Except for the three-year period from 2009-2011 when education funding was based on the number of students and the additional cost to educate certain types of students, Pennsylvania has not allocated its basic state funding to public schools through a predictable, fair funding formula since 1991. There is a better way.
“All of Pennsylvania needs a funding formula that does not discriminate, but sustains a complete education for all students,” said Dr. J. Hugh Dwyer, head of the Central Pa. Public School Coalition.
Joseph Bard is Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
Jim Buckheit is Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators
Jay Himes is Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials
Nathan Mains is Executive Director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association
J. Hugh Dwyer is Executive Director of Central Intermediate Union 10 and head of the Central Pennsylvania Public School Coalition