Title I Funding Update as of July 30, 2004

Supports legislation which provides expansion of the current Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.

On May 17, 2001, former Governor Tom Ridge signed into law Act 4 known as the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program. The program gives Pennsylvania businesses the ability to direct their tax dollars to improve educational opportunities for children and students in their communities.

In 2006, this program provided scholarships to 33,000 students across Pennsylvania.
This program has the potential to give businesses that are liable for state corporate income and other taxes credit of up to $200,000 for donations to scholarships/grants. These donations would be directed to districts and groups such as school foundations established within respective school districts which have the focus to improve public education for all students and provide a tax credit for businesses willing to contribute toward education.

The K-12 program provides companies with a 75% tax credit and 90% for a two year commitment for funds approved for non-profit

scholarship or educational improvement organization. The Pre-Kindergarten initiative provides companies with a tax credit equal to 100% of the first $10,000 contributed specifically to a pre-kindergarten scholarship organization during the taxable year and a tax credit equal to 90% of any additional amount contributed during the year, and up to a maximum of $100,000 per year in order to help school districts who establish new early childhood programs. The schools will, then, have the ability to sustain them and keep them ongoing without public taxpayer funded support in subsequent years which follow new implementation of programs. These businesses need to have financial incentives and know the purpose as well.

Our commonwealth needs to support schools and community groups exploring innovative ways to fund public education in lieu of the current system of state resources and local taxpayers.

Supports legislative efforts to provide a free college education to the children and spouses of Pennsylvania Military Service Members who are

killed in the line of federal or state duty through the expansion of the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program to those businesses who specifically wish to help military offspring due to these circumstances.

Pennsylvania as a commonwealth provides the nation’s highest number of National Guard members (troops) and is the third largest commonwealth providing all personnel serving in the military. When a U.S. service member is killed on duty, his or her family is entitled to an array of benefits. But, due to the inconsistency of regulations and individual circumstances, the amount a surviving family receives varies, and in most cases, does not stretch far enough to cover a family’s expenses.

Across the country, there are various groups which accept public donations for families of troops to help set up funds for providing for the families and children’s educations which are dependent upon the public individual support. While this legislation would not be a panacea for removing the emotional trauma in which is experienced by military families, it would be an entitlement rightly deserving of families while loved ones are deployed in the military that would benefit in minimizing familial trauma.

include spouses, the State has the ability to enable an investment in providing skills and education preparing productive and working citizens in lieu of incurring health and welfare costs for widows, as well as, spouses left behind supporting families.

Supports legislative efforts to prohibit a Governor’s administration from changing and/or circumventing the original purpose and scope of current law regarding dedicated state funding to reflect anything other than its original statutory designation.

The Pennsylvania Accountability Block Grant was established “for the benefit of students enrolled in EACH of the Commonwealth’s school districts.” This opening subsection of the statute makes it clear that block grants are to be available solely to public school districts and furthermore is to imply that every district will receive an accountability block grant to benefit students enrolled in that district. The block grant statute specifies that “the grant shall be used by a school district to attain or maintain academic performance targets.” The law does not read that this dedicated state funding can now be switched and only accessed by those districts that implement early childhood programs which is the endorsed agenda of the current Governor. The General Assembly needs to PROTECT THE INTEGRITY of the REGULATORY PROCESS that enables legislation to pass by both the House and Senate components. Otherwise, you set a debilitating precedence in allowing any administration elected into state government to circumvent the public taxpayer who elects representatives in state government and who holds public statewide testimony making the entire process dubious and farce.

This legislation would not enable any administration who does not get complete embracement of their educational agenda programs for whatever reasons to force a one size fits all measure across the state and penalize those non-participants by withholding their funding. The Accountability Block Grant legislation is earmarked for various educational initiatives to improve student performance and comply with No Child Left Behind. All public school districts currently receive some amount of funding by the Accountability Block Grant, as opposed to a select few, despite their aid ratio and 7-12 student enrollment.

Supports legislation that maintains the existing defined benefits plan for all current members of PSERS.

Supports legislative efforts which establishes a new hybrid plan specifically for public school employees hired after a specified date containing both features of a defined benefits plan, as well as, defined contributions plan.

Defined contribution plans are plans in which both employee and employer make payments into private investment accounts that the employee can draw from after retirement, but the amount of funds is not necessarily guaranteed. The private sector is already utilizing these plans.

With taxpayers mandated to be required to annually contribute toward public school employee pension systems, taxpayers are being committed to a long-term debt obligation via local property taxes. Shifting new employees of the public school system to 401 (k) plans will stabilize costs and eliminate the ability of politicians to hand out costly benefit increases as political favors. At the current time, since lawmakers and union officials will not bear the costs of the benefit increases they preside over, there is no incentive for them to show restraint or to be fiscally responsible. The defined contribution plan simply requires that pension costs be dealt with in the current year. Defined contribution plans offer more stability, transparency, and remove the political influence from the retirement process. They also give employees greater flexibility and investment choices. It would be to Pennsylvania’s benefit economically to establish a two-tier retirement system, one for current public school employees and another for those hired after a specified date.

Supports legislation abolishing teacher strikes throughout Pennsylvania which does not include binding arbitration.

School boards are attempting to contain the runaway costs associated with health insurance coverage for employees in order to provide equitable salaries and continue funding much-needed instructional programs and services without having to substantially raise taxes.

This process is further exacerbated under Act 1’s cap index rate, in which school boards will be attempting to achieve a narrow balance of maintaining current educational programs and services without compromising funding by redirecting it to cover salary and mandated pension costs. Throughout the current collective bargaining process school boards risk teachers having the ability at any point in time of striking, which ends up costing taxpayers more in not just quantitative ways, but, also, qualitative ways.

Eliminating teacher striking would enable school boards more leverage in negotiating collective bargaining school employee contracts. Union bargaining teams are fighting for increased retirement benefits for their members, regardless of the costs taxpayers will pay for those extravagant promises. While the goal of stable retirement income is certainly honorable, the system utilized to achieve it for public school employees is seriously flawed.

Prior to the passage of Act 195, public employers and public employees were governed by Act 492 of 1947, the so-called “NO STRIKE LAW”. Most Americans do not believe there should be teacher strikes. 38 states already prohibit teacher strikes, even strong unions states such as Michigan and New York prohibit teacher striking. Pennsylvania has the dubious distinction of being notably first in ranking throughout the nation for teacher strikes. Addressing this imbalance of power in the collective bargaining process could open the door to other major reforms here in Pennsylvania.

Supports legislation that penalizes employers and employees with sanctions associated with work stoppages and teacher striking.

Most states prohibit strikes and several impose severe penalties for violators of strike ban laws. The strictest states make striking a misdemeanor and violators can be sent to prison in North Carolina and Iowa. In Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee, teachers are dismissed and unions face considerable fines. Under the Taylor law, teachers in New York are penalized by the loss of two days wages for each day off the job and unions lose their dues check off privilege for a year. There is no motivation for Pennsylvania teacher’s union to curtail from hitting the picket line as strikers under the current system, as each striker will receive their full annual salary regardless since the law requires that the 180 day school year be completed by June 30. In the event the commonwealth was to mandate a 198 day calendar school year in which school was completed by May 31st by beginning annually in August, Pennsylvania could then minimize end of the year striking practices statewide, as proven in other states where implemented.

Supports legislation which imposes a penalty which takes away two days pay and benefits for each day teachers miss regularly scheduled school time.

Even if the General Assembly would pass legislation prohibiting striking, the current Governor will almost certainly veto it. THIS LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATION WOULD REQUIRE NO OTHER LAW CHANGE REGARDING STRIKES TO BE REQUIRED. This change would extract an economic sacrifice from strikers, the same as any other worker out on strike would face. This reform would seriously alter the bargaining balance away from the heavy way it now favors teachers and penalizes school boards and taxpayers. New York employs this penalty and the numbers of strikes there are very low and decreasing annually. If this method was applied, the same would most likely happen in Pennsylvania.

Supports legislation that establishes educational programs which enhance career awareness in Pennsylvania high schools by establishing a competitive grant program in the Department of Education.

Career awareness enables students to see relevance to their current school curriculum therefore enabling them to make the connections between what they learn in school and real world application. Research has shown that connecting academics to real-life situations positively impacts student performance and helps students to see learning as the foundation for their future, as well as, curtails high school drop out rates. The opportunities for linkages between students and prospective employers including those offering internships and apprenticeships would exists and be consistent throughout school districts.

Supports legislative efforts to establish a Pennsylvania Virtual High School offering a wide variety of potential learning services to enhance public education learning opportunities.

Virtual schools operating in other states are highly adaptive and offer states a potentially cost effective way to reach a wide range of students, including those in rural areas, with advanced or specialized course work that might not otherwise be accessible to them. This virtual program could provide a variety of services such as expanded course offerings such as higher mathematics and science courses, foreign languages, advanced placement programs, SAT preparation courses, summer enrichment and tutoring programs, expanded offerings for gifted and talented students, increased instructional options for at risk, homebound, and alternative education students, as well as, linkages between students and prospective employers.

Rather than have 29 intermediate Units across the Commonwealth each separately providing redundant virtual services, consolidate them and enable the state to prove a cost-effective, consistent, and higher quality curriculum program statewide accessible to all students despite socio-economic factors.

Supports legislative efforts to establish a funding source sending targeted money to ALL public schools in the state, as opposed to a select few, to use at their local discretion for textbooks in core academic subjects, instructional materials and equipment, or toward technology to support their high school programs.

Currently, school districts spend their basic education funding largely on building maintenence and employee salaries and benefits, while special education funding is targeted toward the special needs of the special education population. The Accountability Block Grant is earmarked for various educational initiatives to improve student performance and comply with NCLB. But nowhere are funds available for the basic tools needed to keep classrooms equipped for a 21st century curriculum.

Supports legislation approving measures specifically to address new hires through more stringent benefit calculations and eligibility formulas.

Major changes need to be enacted in retirement eligibility and benefit calculation for new and nonvested teachers and public school employees. Pennsylvania school employees are vested in the retirement system when they have accumulated five years of credited service. Increasing the vesting eligibility at ten years in lieu of five, will affect a number of existing members. Age and service requirements for formula benefits have the potential to be increased and the multipliers can either be increased or reduced, creating significant cost savings to the entire commonwealth.

Supports legislation enacting measures to limit the spiking of salaries in the years just before retirement for public school employees.

Numerous states such as Nebraska, Louisiana, and Illinois have enacted cap increases in salary making school districts and institutions of higher education liable for the present value of an increase in benefits resulting from annual salary increases of more than 6% in the years used to determine final average salary. The formula passed in Pennsylvania’s Act 9 of 2001, allows full retirement at 35 year’s of service or with 30 years of service at age 62, in which the system typically attaches benefits at 87.5% of an employee’s salary, or about three times the average private pension. In addition, because retiree’s no longer pay 7.45% in social security taxes, or 6% in pension fund contributions and may be eligible to Social Security payments, those retiring under Act 9 can actually draw more income than they did while being employed and working. In comparison, in the private sector, pensions nationally average 30% of an individual’s income.

Supports legislation enacting school employees to match employer contribution rates into PSERS pension retirement system.

The PSERS system is funded by contributions by employees, school employers (local school districts) and the commonwealth. School employers match the state’s contribution through a 50/50 formula. School employee members are required by law to make pretax contributions into the system at rates that differ based on when they were hired prior or after May 2001’s Act 9 and based on their class of service.
School employers are required to deduct mandated retirement contributions from employee’s pay and forward those amounts to PSERS. The rates for all three ways of contributing, are determined by the PSERS board of directors based on actuarial projections. During 2001-02 to 2005-06, public school employees have only had their contribution rates raised by .73%, which is less than 1%. During that same time frame, school employers have been forced to raise their contribution rates from 3.6% to 4.69% and now more recently, to 7.69% for the 2006-07 year.

The actual dollars’ increases in employer contributions were $110.4 million from $321.1 million in FY 2004 to $431.4 million in FY 2005. That was due to an increase in the contribution rate for employers from 2.98% in FY 2004 to 4% in FY 2005 (with an additional .69% to cover health care premiums). In comparison, employee contributions increased by just $4.6 million from $783.7 million in FY 2004 to $788.3 million in FY 2005, which was only a result of the increase in the total participant salary base.

Supports legislation promoting incentives and rewards for accomplished professionals and supports for teachers and leaders working in high-poverty, low performing schools.

The percentage of minority students will continue to increase, but, the percentage of the talent pool of minority teachers and administrators to serve as role models and educators for these students, is well below national averages and is a continuous and urgent challenge for the education establishment. If we address this issue now as an education investment statewide, it will prevent our commonwealth from addressing it as an educational expense at a later point in time through economic measures related to poverty, welfare, and incarceration.

Federal, state, and district systems of rewards and sanctions for low-performing schools hold people accountable for improved achievement in ways which deter highly qualified teachers and principals from going into these schools. District improvement plans promote policies and practices that get and keep effective teachers and leaders in high poverty, low-performing schools. Provide legislation to make sure those schools are places where effective teachers and leaders want to work, be attracted to a higher level of challenge and ,most importantly, can be successful. The NCES reports that minority children make up about 40% of the nation’s elementary and secondary school enrollment, while just 13.5% of teachers are members of racial and ethnic minorities.

Supports legislation ensuring consideration for a transience factor in determining AYP in schools, so that schools with highly transient student populations will not be unduly penalized for the performance of students who have been enrolled a short period of time.

Rationale: One of the key intentions of the School State Report Cards is for parents to be provided accurate information that the school districts in those communities provide quality educational opportunities. It is unfair for districts to be judged based on the test results of students who, for example, may have lived in the district for only a short time. Therefore, the association should seek to support legislation which would require the DOE to modify their State Report Cards for schools to take into account the percentage of students enrolled in a school district for fewer than 360 instructional days (two school years) before the school year in which the state assessment was administered. For example, is it fair for a new student moving into a new community or new state to be administered the PSSA to which they are totally unfamiliar with and then have those same results factored into the district’s overall AYP results for public posting?

Supports efforts in modifying the Federal Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995 so that it applies to the No Child Left Behind Act and other relevant federal statutes.

Rationale: The federal legislation entitled “The 1995 Unfunded Mandate Reform Act” considers NCLB to be a grant condition, meaning, “States do not have to participate….it is a voluntary program.” Federal grant conditions according to the UMRA are not considered unfunded mandates. Therefore, NCLB is not considered to be an unfunded mandate because of exceptions and loopholes in the language as contained and defined by the 1995 UMRA.

Furthermore, the newly released General Accounting Office (GAO) report entitled, “Unfunded Mandates: Analysis of Reform Act Coverage” confirms in its findings that the NCLB Act is not an unfunded mandate; as critics of the law have claimed. In fact, the GAO’s report confirms that the NCLB Act did not meet the UMRA of 1995 definition of a mandate because the requirements were “a condition of federal assistance” (Page 22) and that any costs incurred by the state, local, or tribal governments would result from complying with conditions for receiving the funds (Page 24).

The same can be said of the amount of funding necessary for special education and the actual funding actually appropriated. The huge discrepancy is clear, but is still not considered unfounded with a clear indication of an unfunded mandate. However, the UMRA bill does not apply to appropriation bills. Being that IDEA is considered an appropriation, technically then, the IDEA shortfall is not considered an unfunded mandate as per the UMRA.

Supports legislation providing adequate state funding for additional and safe modes of transportation required to provide transportation for charter, private, alternative, and special education student needs.

Rationale: The primary means of transporting students to and from charter, private, and alternative education schools is usually via busses contracted by the local school district. Most often, local taxpayers are unaware that it is the responsibility of the local district to provide transportation to and from schools to resident students not necessarily attending the district’s public school system.
Students living inside the local district who attend non-public schools are provided transportation pursuant to applicable statutes, regulations, and district wide policies. While all students are entitled to and privileged to transportation services, provided that they meet the provisions as established under Act 372, transportation costs are not absorbed in the per pupil expenditures of students. With increased amounts of students enrolling in charter and non-public schooling, as well as, NCLB requiring districts to provide for school choice, schools nationwide will be incurred with increased costs for providing safe and efficient bus transportation in the years to come for non-public students.

Pennsylvania’s aid ratios continue to decline statewide according to the new 2000 Census, as well as, Title 1 funding allocations from the federal government. Districts statewide are receiving reduced transportation subsidies continually in the past ten years due to decreasing market value aid ratios, which is directly related to the increasing wealth of school districts according to statistics, put out by the census bureau. As a result, the subsidy that is most affected by the reduced aid ratios is the transportation subsidy, as there currently is not a minimum level of funding.

Supports legislation that designates and provides a major source of state funding for cyber charter schools.

Rationale: Funding for cyber charter schools continues to come from a student’s home school district. Districts must pay full tuition for any resident student who enrolls in a cyber school regardless of where it is based, utilizing a combination of state and local money. According to the 2002 charter law amendments, the cost of charters to the public schools has been reduced. The state now supplies 30% of charter school funds, since charters only receive about 4/5’s of a school district’s per-pupil spending, the district share is drastically reduced according to the PDE, which now has oversight authority of all the state cyber charter schools. The state believes the district share is barely half the amount per charter student that the public schools spend on their own students attending their own schools. Currently, if school districts refuse payment of tuition to cyber charter schools, the Education Department simply deducts the amount of unpaid tuition from their state aid.

Supports efforts that allow local decision-making and flexibility to better serve students in implementation of the NCLB Act and the Individual’s Disability Education Imrpovement Act.

Rationale: One of the sticking issues of NCLB and IDEA continues to be special education students. In most cases, NCLB conflicts with a student’s uniqueness as demonstrated through meeting the accommodations of their goals and objectives as designated in the Individualized Education Plan (IEP). NCLB contradicts the process and purpose by which a student was originally deemed unable to reach 100% proficiency therefore designating an IEP containing legitimate and needed modifications. NCLB overrides the authority of IEP teams throughout school districts by administering regular state assessments (PSSA) even when deemed inappropriate by the IEP professionals. No one is going to argue that special education students should not be held to high standards, as well as, accountability, but testing them in a fashion that does not allow them to show what they know is punitive and is not helpful. Schools can significantly boost special education student
performance by focusing attention specifically on resources and those staff working closely with special education students. One example of an effort that would support the above resolution would be as recommended by the PDE: If a school is meeting adequate yearly progress in all categories and subgroups except special education, that school should not be identified as needing improvement or failing under NCLB. Rather the school must apply the strategic interventions associated with AYP to focus on that district’s special education program, as well as, providers in an effort to resolve the areas lacking within the program.

Rationale: Page 29 of the 2005 PSBA’s Belief’s and policies states, “The control of public schools should always be vested in local school boards”. Anything that comes in between that right and authority is clearly an erosion of local control.

School boards retaining the right to retain primary authority to regulate curriculum, is neither stated nor found anywhere in the Public School Code Act of 1949, it is an “implied right” as vested in the General Assembly. As per the School Code, the information listed below specifically points out references from the School Code that supports the statutorily defined autonomy of local school boards to determine curriculum and graduation requirements, both of which are local control issues.

Several statutes and the Pennsylvania School Code define powers given to local school boards. In Section 24 of the Pennsylvania Statutes (508) a majority vote of the school board is required in order to adopt courses of study.

Title 22 of the PA Code contains regulations promulgated by the State Board of Education or the Department of Education. These are not laws passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor. It is stated at the beginning of 22 PA Code Chapter 4.4, (General Policies) “…the curriculum must be aligned in order to achieve academic standards”. Under this same section, it also states that it is the policy of the Board (State Board of Education) that the local curriculum be designed by school districts….to achieve the academic standards under Section 4.12.

Regulations and statutes such as these empower local school boards to determine local curriculum and graduation requirements. The statutorily defined autonomy of local school districts to determine graduation requirements and the granting of diplomas must be preserved.

Supports legislation stating that local school boards have the sole authority to determine what will be denoted on student records.

Rationale: Whether it is a “seal”, “stamp”, “score”, or “certificate”…..The Public School Code of 1949, section 1166-Academic Degrees states: “The power to confer academic degrees, is hereby vested in the school board of directors”. This proposed amendment reaffirms the statute authority vested with the school board to issue diplomas. In addition, it confirms the local school boards authority and option to make a “choice” reflecting their community and school district, as to whether to affix a seal onto a diploma or a PSSA score onto a student transcript.

The proposed amendment prevents the original action planned by the Pennsylvania
Department of Education to alter diplomas by affixing state sponsored state seals onto student records and/or make notations on student records regarding “proficiency” or “basic” unless the local school board concurs. The state’s original plan to alter diplomas was being done without permission from the diploma issuing entity, the local school board, without regard to the local school board’s wishes. More importantly, no student who has worked to the best of his or her ability to fulfill graduation requirements should carry through the remainder of his or her life a diploma and/or transcript with a negative distinction, such as a seal, based on a one time test that would place the student at a disadvantage for college admission and/or the work market.

Opposes the use of any single or inappropriate measure of student achievement for any high-stakes reason, such as the distribution of funds or consequences or rewards to students, schools, and school districts.

Rationale: A sole test score should not be used as a primary criterion for any student achievement. A one-size fits all test is unfair and inappropriate. More importantly, the PSSA is a snapshot in time and is not necessarily reflective of a student’s twelve-year academic career. No student who has worked to the best of his or her ability to fulfill graduation requirements should carry through the remainder of his or her life a diploma and/or transcript with a negative distinction, such as a certificate, score, or state notation, based on a one-time test that would place the student at a disadvantage for college admission and/or work market. “Inappropriate” is referred to as invalid or unreliable in the above proposal. The issue is that school districts prefer “multiple measures of assessment utilized” with no sole indicators.

Opposes any efforts to reduce or remove the authority of local school districts to establish graduation requirements.

Rationale: Several statutes and the Pennsylvania School Code define powers given to local school boards. In Section 24 of the Pennsylvania Statutes (508) a majority vote of the school board is required in order to adopt courses of study.

PA School Code Section 1611 invests the “power to confer academic degrees, honorary, or otherwise…” to the board of school directors of the district and Section 1613 invests the power to issue high school certificates in the board of school directors. Regulations and statutes such as these empower local school boards to determine local curriculum and graduation requirements.

Supports legislation permitting alternative methodology for measuring individual and aggregate student progress under the NCLB Act, for determining AYP targets,
specifically for ESL and students with disabilities without compromising accountability determinations.

Rationale: It is not uncommon for schools failing to meet AYP measures under the NCLB Act, to still fulfill measuring individual student growth based on how much progress individual students make over time. States across the country are readily submitting proposals to the USDOE that would enable schools that miss their achievement targets under the NCLB law to demonstrate through various growth models, (i.e. value-added assessment, or Pennsylvania Performance Index system) that they are still making substantial progress by utilizing other measures for accountability determinations.

Supports legislation requiring unobligated federal education funding to be fully reassigned to Title 1 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.

States such as Pennsylvania are not fully accessing their federal funds available to them for Title 1 and IDEA purposes. These so called “unobligated funds” are not sitting idle or uncommitted, whereas, a portion of those funds are committed for ongoing contracts with specific spending schedules for cash flow purposes. This commitment of funds cannot be reassigned to IDEA or Title 1 purposes and will not add to the current funding levels which districts currently receive respectively for both. This federal shortfall leaves states and local school districts in a deficit which is ultimately made up by the local taxpayers within school districts across the country. There is already a struggle with Congress over the disparity of funding authorized and what is actually appropriated and actually received at the local level once accessed by States…..the parameters of the system created are preventing needed funding from reaching its most vulnerable students in America’s classrooms.

Supports legislation authorizing school districts to levy impact fees or taxes on the development of residential property to offset incremental costs.

Rationale: According to the National Center for Education Statistics, overall school enrollments reached a record high of 52.7 million in 1998 and estimate that figure to increase by 3% by 2008 at the secondary level (9-12) and 11% with enrollments (K-8). At the same time, America’s school buildings are aging even as its pupil population is growing. These two trends taking place in our commonwealth’s schools mimic the national trends most schools are experiencing. Most school construction costs are financed in Pennsylvania primarily with local tax revenues as most state aid accounts for only 12% of the projected outlays. Rural school districts statewide are adversely affected by increased enrollments, but, lower property assessments and tax yields. 40% of the commonwealth’s schools are inadequate in space and age deterioration and would cost approximately $7.2 billion to replace. The most frequently cited reasons listed by local school officials for undertaking construction projects include: the age of the existing facility, technology improvements, inadequate instructional space, and increasing pupil enrollments.

Life long residents of various communities might still be able to stay in their homes and not be forced to move because of ever increasing taxes needed because of new development and the expectations of new residents. When impact fees are rolled into their mortgages, it isn’t nearly as painful as the ever increasing tax increase.