Governor Corbett: “Taxpayers need to help themselves.”

In an article released Wednesday, Governor Corbett blames local tax increases on local school boards and states “taxpayers need to help themselves.”

For two decades, the state has ignored its responsibility to fund education and has transferred that burden on to local taxpayers. Currently, Pennsylvania ranks 4^th in the Nation in our dependence on local property taxes to fund education and ranks the 8^th highest in cuts to education.

Last year, facing a statewide budget cut of over $900 million, school boards were faced with hard decisions of raising taxes or eliminating programs, such as full-day kindergarten and music class, or forcing students to pay to play in sports. In a PASA report released last year, it was reported that in Pennsylvania, 14,178 public school jobs were shed (which includes teachers, administrators and other employees), 70% of school districts increased class sizes, 44% reduced elective course offerings, 35% reduced or eliminated programs such as tutoring and 20% eliminated summer school programs. With additional cuts proposed for the upcoming budget, what else is there to cut?

In the article, Corbett also states, “I would love to see taxpayers speaking up at the school board meetings.” This week I attended a school board meeting in southern central PA and a town hall meeting in northern central PA and both meetings were packed with concerned community members. In addition, parents and community members throughout the state are gathering locally to protest these cuts by hosting mock bake sale to stress the message that “There aren’t enough cookies in PA to close this budget gap.” Parents are concerned and upset with the quality of education their children are receiving and the direction this state is heading and are bringing these concerns to the people who make these decisions: the General Assembly and the Governor.

Perhaps the Governor should start trying to understand the needs and concerns of the residents of Pennsylvania and start accepting the responsibilities that came with the office of Governor.

How do you feel about Corbett’s comments?

When Is a Bake Sale Not a Bake Sale?

An invitation to Philadelphia’s April 12^th Mock Bake Sale for Public Education

By Rebecca Poyourow, Public School Parent

Question #1: When is a bake sale not a bake sale?

Answer: When it is a protest against $1 billion in cuts to public schools--and when it is an event at which no cookies will actually be sold.

Question #2: When is Philadelphia’s “Mock Bake Sale for Public Education”?

Answer: Thursday, April 12^th

Part 1: 2:00 p.m. group lobbying visit and “cookie delivery” to members of City Council in City Hall (meet up on the north side of City Hall at 2:00).

Part II: 4:00 p.m. rally with state legislators, which will take place on the north side of City Hall.

Question #3: What can I bring?

Answer: Yourself, friends and family, cookies, and signs.

Question #4: Why a Philadelphia “Mock Bake Sale for Public Education”?

Answer:

I don’t know about you, but I consider myself to be a pretty good baker. When there’s an event or a bake sale at my children’s school, I’ll plan to bake something after work even if it keeps me up until 11:00 at night. And I know I’m not alone. Many moms and dads answer the call when it comes to their kids’ schools. We will bake and volunteer and fundraise in lots of ways out of love and support for our kids and their schools.

But this year has been a doozy. While a bake sale is fine tool to raise money for a class trip or art-club supplies, you cannot base a state education system on bake sales, which is precisely what last year’s state education budget and this year’s proposed budget attempt to do. After last year’s cut of $900 million from schools across Pennsylvania, which translated into roughly $300 million in cuts in state funding for Philadelphia, we have all been swamped trying to fill the gaping hole where the foundation sustaining our children’s educations used to be. Now Governor Corbett is proposing that another $100 million be cut from basic education funding next year ($21 million of which would come from Philadelphia), bringing the losses to $1 billion statewide.

All Philadelphians know what we’ve had to grapple with across the city including layoffs of teachers, aides, nurses, and other staff who provide instruction and a safe learning environment for our kids. These cuts have led to overcrowded classrooms and unsafe school environments. We’ve seen supply budgets zeroed out. We’ve seen what happens when special needs and gifted students do not receive the services they need--and how that strains classroom dynamics in addition to shortchanging individual kids. We’ve seen the contraction of the curriculum even further as music, art, and language instruction are put on the chopping block.

Parent advocates, teachers, students, and staff have all tried to respond to this crisis in many ways. We have advocated for the Philadelphia School District to be more prudent with the funds it has, and we have protested strongly when it has not. Our efforts to hold the district accountable will certainly continue. We have also worked hard to donate our time, energy, and what money we can to our individual schools. I know at my kids’ school alone, parents have put in over 1,000 volunteer hours this year. Across our city and state, parents, grandparents, and community members have tutored, volunteered in overcrowded classrooms, run after-school clubs, and monitored lunches, pick-up, and drop-off times. We have raised money to hire essential staff laid-off due to cuts, we have cleaned school yards, we have paid for books, we have donated reams of paper, and other basic supplies, and, yes, we have held bake sales. Such volunteer efforts are valuable and beautiful, and parents are proud of them and will keep them up, but they cannot make up the difference when we are talking about the systemic underfunding of our children’s schools.

The Philadelphia Mock Bake Sale for Public Education has been planned by a coalition of parents from public schools all across the city. There are similar bake sales being held across the state this week by parents in Pittsburgh, Shippensburg, Harrisburg, and other communities. Our message is that there are just not enough cookies in Pennsylvania! We need to be loud and clear and let our elected officials at City Hall and in Harrisburg know that funding the education of our children is a crucial public good that must be a central budgetary priority.

Please join us on Thursday, April 12th!

For more information on the Philadelphia Bake Sale, go to: http://www.facebook.com/events/256742904417848/

Yes, it’s Working! (and here’s how we know)

- Post by Jessie Ramey of Yinzercation

We’ve called our legislators, written them letters, and met with them; we’ve hosted house parties, a teach-in, and public forums; we’ve held a rally in a snowstorm, published op-ed pieces, and submitted letters-to-the-editor. But is it working?

The simple answer is yes. But to understand how it’s working, we have to piece together what is going on around the state.

The end goal is obviously to reverse the devastating state budget cuts to public education. Since our legislators are the people who can do that through the budget negotiation process, we have to monitor what they are saying and doing to gauge if we’re being effective. But our legislators are politicians first, which means they are listening to their constituents. So there are really two gauges we have to keep our eye on: 1) our legislators’ increasing willingness to champion public education, and 2) the general public’s growing awareness and advocacy around education.

The good news is that both dials appear to be nudging upwards. For instance, on the legislative dial here in Southwest Pennsylvania, Representative Dan Frankel has long been counted on to support public education. But we’re hearing from him more regularly on the issue now, including comments he issued immediately following the proposed budget announcement last month. He also called out Yinzercation specifically in a recent email to constituents. Senator Jay Costa has replied to letters and phone calls with impressively detailed accounts of his pro-public education stand and spoke at the “Last Lunch” seminar at Pitt last week about the budget.

Also in Yinzer Nation, Senator Wayne Fontana, Representative Nick Kotick, and Representative Jesse White spoke forcefully for public education at last week’sforum in South Fayette. And Representative Jake Wheatley, a member of the House Education Committee, met with students who travelled to Harrisburg for the A+ Schools Valentine’s Day Rally and also spoke at the Pitt “Last Lunch” seminar.

In other parts of the state, Representative Mike Sturla from Lancaster County has become a vocal advocate of public education. He hosted a public hearing on the budget cuts two weeks ago along with Representative Margo Davidson of Upper Darby. Sturla has particularly highlighted the issue of fiscally distressed districts such as Chester Upland (the current poster-child for the state’s failure to provide equitable and sustainable resources to all students).

While these representatives are all Democrats, there has been some noticeable movement among Republicans, too. Fifteen Republicans refused to vote for Governor’s Corbett’s voucher bill in December – a crucial victory for public education advocates (though the battle is not yet fully won on that issue). Representative Paul Clymer, a Republican from Bucks County, met with teens rallying for public education in Harrisburg last month. And Senator Jake Corman, a Republican from Centre County has come out quite vocally against cuts to public higher-education, an obviously closely related issue.

Another strong indicator of progress on the “legislative dial” is the new effort of the House Democratic Caucus to track press coverage of school district budgets. Every single day, the caucus website posts articles from around the state. Since January 23^rd, the site has shared over 250 newspaper articles detailing the devastating effects of state budget cuts on local schools, helping to keep legislators focused on public education. They wouldn’t be doing this if they weren’t hearing from their constituents that public education matters.

On the “public awareness dial,” there has been much movement in the past few months. This past weekend, OnePittsburgh – a coalition of local faith groups, community organizations, and labor – hosted a well-attended education event with a presentation by Ron Cowell, President of the Education Policy and Leadership Center. Collaborations like these with state-wide education groups are proving extremely fruitful in nudging that public awareness dial. Last week, the Pennsylvania State Education Association kicked off its Partners for Public Education campaign in South Fayette, drawing a large crowd.

Tonight on the other side of the state, there is a legislative forum on public education in Lehigh County, sponsored by the League of Women Voters with state representatives and senators invited. Next week, legislators will be meeting with school officials in Bradford, Sullivan, and Tioga counties at an event sponsored by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Later this month, Pennsylvania Auditor Jack Wagner will talk on “The Real Impact of the Proposed State Budget on Public Education” at a public meeting hosted by the League of Women Voters of Chester County; and Arcadia University will host a panel discussion, “Unpacking the PA School Budget: What Does This Mean for Me?” moderated by the Education Law Center.

Education Voters PA, a state-wide public education advocacy organization, set the date for this week’s call-your-legislator day and worked with groups across Pennsylvania. This was the third time Yinzer Nation has collaborated with EdVoters PA on call-in events, with participation increasing each time. Also in our area, EdVoters PA is helping to organize a public forum in the North Hills, a “Write Now!” kids’ advocacy event at the Children’s Museum, and will be coordinating a state-wide bake-sale in April, highlighting how many cookies we would all have to sell to make up for these budget cuts. Stay tuned for lots more details on these efforts.

These events are more than the sum of their parts. As we work with groups like EdVoters PA, we spark conversations around the state, acting as a catalyst for further grassroots organizing. And we know that this grassroots movement is working. Our friends at EdVoters PA keep a close eye on Harrisburg and tell us that a new Department of Education website is a sure sign of mounting public pressure. The website, designed to explain Corbett’s claim that schools are actually getting increased funding under his proposed budget plan, is clearly a reaction to the growing public realization that school budgets are, in fact, being drastically slashed.

As the Capitolwire Bureau Chief Peter DeCoursey points out in a recent article, “For a guy who ran for governor saying school districts were over-funded and could and should do more with less money, Gov. Corbett sure does everything he can now to hide the fact that he is governing as he promised in his campaign…. Why is he trying to hide this clear policy goal now?… it is about his only declared policy on which he shilly-shallies about what he did.” It is pretty clear that Corbett is feeling the heat of public pressure on this issue as people line up behind their public schools.

So all this was a long-winded way of saying, “Yes, it’s working!” Keep up the fight. Keep talking to your friends and to your legislators, and we’ll keep pushing those dials a little further. We can do it when we work together.

An Increase or a Decrease?

Yesterday, March 5^th, it was time for Secretary Ron Tomalis to testify in front of the House Appropriation Committee. I was curious to see if this budget hearing would be similar to the Senate’s budget hearing last week. In that hearing, it seemed that people were unhappy with the lack of leadership to support public education and the cuts the Governor has proposed. I was wrong. There was not the frustration in the room seen last week, there was actual praise for the “leadership” of the Secretary (huh?). In some cases, it seemed certain easy questions were planted so that he could get in all of his talking points.

The main focus of this hearing was whether funding for education was an increase or a decrease.

Now you would think whether or not the budget for education has been cut would be an easy thing to determine, but there was a lot of disagreement. The hearing started out with charts being distributed by the some members of Appropriations. The purpose of these charts was to show the accounting gimmicks Corbett and his Administration are using to say there is an increase in education when there is none.

Rep. Matt Bradford asked the Secretary if he agreed that state funding for K-12 in 2012-13 (post-stimulus budget) at$5.3 billion is reduced from the $5.8 billion funding level in 2008-09 (pre-stimulus budget). The Secretary disagreed, stating that you need to consider the $300 million in pension contributions (which are state mandated). Tomalis argued that this should be considered in the instructional cost of having a teacher in a classroom. But neither the 2008-09 funding ($5.8 billion) nor the 2012-13 proposed funding ($5.3 million) include pension contributions. Seems like a decrease to me.

The second is it or is it not there question was the Accountability Block Grant. In this year’s budget, the state legislature and Governor inserted the $100 million in ABG as an addition to the just-ending budget year’s school funding (ending June 2011) for it to be spent in the current school year ending in June 2012 (which it was). The Secretary argued that since it was not actually included in this year’s budget and is not proposed in next year’s, there is no decrease. I have a feeling school districts across the Commonwealth who are currently using that $100 million to fund programs such as full-day kindergarten and tutoring would beg to differ when they don’t have those funds next year. What do you think?

Heading in the Wrong Direction.

Yesterday, Feb. 27th, I attended the Senate Appropriation Committee budget hearing for the Department of Education. At this point I’ve heard Secretary Ron Tomalis speak many times and had a feeling of what he would, or more importantly, would not say. I went there more interested in what questions the Senators would ask and also how much tolerance there would be for the administration’s inertia towards leadership on critical issues, transparency and accountable and, of course, public education in general.

Quick background: the Secretary was there to defend the Governor’s $94 million in cuts for next year’s budget, in addition to the $900 million cut from this year's budget. The Secretary (and the Governor) constantly state that $900 million was federal dollars and not state dollars; that it was the school districts who decided to use stimulus money to fund key programs and not the state who used the federal funds to supplant state funds; that school districts should have known these funds were not going to be replaced next year. Then why did the state restore the federal funds used to fund the Dept of Corrections??? Hmmmm. Check out the photo below courtesy of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.

Here are some key highlights:

Sen. Jim Ferlo told the Secretary that the Administration was “passing the buck” to local tax payers and backing away from the Commonwealth’s commitment to public education. He advocated for the need for a basic core subsidy. (check out Ed Voters piece on how to have a sensible approach to funding schools). Sen. Greenlee concurred, urging the Administration to lead the charge in relieving the property tax burden many school districts are experiencing.

Sen. Dinniman, the Minority Chair of the Senate Education Committee, pushed the Secretary to provide the names of financially-distress districts, which the Secretary refused to do. Sen. Dinniman claimed the state legislator cannot help these districts if they do not know who they are and how bad the situation is.

Sen. Pat Vance stated she hates that school districts have been held harmless, meaning receiving the same amount of funding despite a potential decrease in student enrollment. She advocated that we need to fund students and not institutions (again, check out our handout on this.)

Sen. Piccola, the Majority Chair of the Senate Education Committee adamantly disagreed with the Secretary and the Administration’s decision to reduce the number of test to be administered through the Keystone Exams. These exams were developed by Govs. Tom Ridge and Ed Rendell and Sen. Piccola claimed the elimination of the other 8 planned exams “guts” a key long-running state accountability program (do you see a pattern here?).

Sen. Tomlinson expressed his concern regarding the additional cuts to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education who are experiencing a 30% cut this budget and a mid-year freeze of $20.6 million. In the Governor’s current budget, PASSHE would receive only $2 million more than the system received 24 years ago in 1988-89, despite adding 23,000 students since then. (There are two bills currently in the House and Senate Education Committee)

Special Education concerns were expressed from Sen. Baker and Sen. Pippy who noted that there has not been an increase for special education for the last four years. Special education funding is distributed on the assumption that 15% of the students have a disability, regardless of whether the number of students with a disability had increased or decreased.

The Chairman of the committee, Sen. Jake Cormen told the Secretary that if we want these institutions of higher education to remain “public schools” than we need to restore ALL funding to them.

Though I still left the hearing still frustrated with how the Administration is handling public education in Pennsylvania, this frustration was slightly eased knowing that the Senators were all just as frustrated as I was. It’s as if in all of our guts, we all knew we are not heading in the right direction. Next week, the Secretary gives his testimony to the House Appropriation Committee….this should be interesting.

Let me know your thought below.

Testimony to the House Democratic Policy Committee

Susan Gobreski, Executive Director

February 16, 2012

Good morning and thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Education Voters is a non-profit public interest organization that advocates for better public policy for the education of Pennsylvania’s students. We believe that every child should have an excellent education and an opportunity to learn. We have over 16,000 supporters, from every county in the Commonwealth and we have over 46,000 people who receive periodic updates from us. We meet with over 1000 community representatives and parents annually to discuss PA’s public education policy.

Our testimony today will focus on the public interest: what it is with regard to public education and why we believe that this current budget proposal, and indeed the direction of funding for public education, does not meet any reasonable test for serving the public interest.

At a very basic level, the role of government is to support the public interest: to promote policies that bring benefits to communities where the benefits do not accrue just to individuals, but to recognize that policies that merit government attention are ones that ultimately do one of three things: promote opportunities, remedy systemic disparity, and protect the rights of individuals.

And if a key role of government is producing, or facilitating the production of, benefits that accrue to a broader constituency than just individuals, than the measure of whether or not something achieves that objective may be summed up as: something that brings an improvement to the quality of life for many, is administered in an objective manner; that seeks to provide a level playing field and a fair opportunity for all; and that tackles any systemic inequities.

Public education serves the public interest. It promotes, albeit imperfectly, that one should not be dependent on the wealth of one’s parents to be entitled to access an education. We are not where we need to be, but our shortcomings should not cause us to cast aside this worthy goal. Public education assigns rights to a child, including the right to opportunity and sets forth a framework to protect those rights. It recognizes that it is not just the child being educated that benefits, but the community. Higher levels of educational attainment result in more productive people who then share the costs of services on which we all depend; that an educated workforce increases productivity, that people with know-how and skill start businesses, invent things, create jobs for others, build things, act in a civic leadership capacity, sweep the sidewalk and coach little league. Educated people are more likely to be self-sufficient and less likely to rely on services. If we are concerned about the cost of welfare, or the notion of dependency, or imprisonment, then we must inherently be concerned about providing a quality education to all. Shortchanging education means pulling back on a commitment to being an opportunity society.

I thought I’d list out a few economic benefits to the Commonwealth of PA of improving educational achievement, and I am providing as part of my testimony, material from the Alliance for Excellent Education that is specific to PA.

• Over a lifetime, an 18 year old who does not complete high school earns approximately $260,000 less than an individual with a high school diploma and contributes about $60,000 less in lifetime federal and state income taxes. ⁱⁱ
• For every 1000 people graduate from high school rather than drop out, there would have been $128 million in increased spending and $45 million in increased investments.
• A number I am sure you have heard before, but bears repeating: every $1 invested in early childhood education yields $7-16 in returns from savings in future service and support costs.
• We could expect to get $18 million in increased tax revenue in a year, if we are able to improve educational outcomes and prevent young people from dropping out.
• A one year increase in average years of schooling for dropouts would reduce murder and assault by almost 30% vehicle theft by 20% and burglary and larceny by 6%.

With all that in mind, I’d like to highlight key points about this year’s budget proposal. I’d like to remind this body that we are just 5 months into a school year in which we experienced $900 million in cuts. These 900 million in cuts are not old news. The impact of these cuts is in full effect right now: classes sizes have been increased, programs have been cut already and schools are looking at additional cuts even as we speak; communities are facing the prospect of increasing property taxes.

Let’s just take a quick look at class size for example. It is easy to think that it does not matter how many children are in a room when a teacher teaches, but if we believe that teaching quality matters, than we must believe that teachers need to be able to provide enough individual attention to each student and their needs. If a class goes from 22-30, that is nearly a 36% increase. For each other area that is experiencing loss, such as the loss of Kindergarten, tutoring, technology, materials, we could point out the depth of the impact.

It is irresponsible of this Governor, and it would be irresponsible of this legislature, to treat a budget that is 5 months in to dealing with nearly $1 billion in cuts as “the new normal”. We should not be discussing this year’s funding levels in a vacuum. There was one right thing to do for public education in this year’s budget and that was to restore the funds that were cut from our students and our communities last year and it didn’t happen.

These $900 million in cuts were not administered fairly, and in fact fell disproportionately on minority communities. Rolling back the funding levels also had the effect of “rolling back” the funding distribution method and eliminating fixes that had been put in place. My colleagues testifying have laid that out very clearly.

In addition, this budget includes the elimination of approximately $94 million in cuts to funds that were allocated to programs directed specifically at student achievement brings us to just about a billion in cuts in less than 12 months.

And lest anyone tells you that money doesn’t matter: I’d like to offer a partial list of the way that the amount of money available plays a role in educational quality:

-Class size, technology, availability of programs such as language, music, arts, all demonstrated to have positive learning impacts; early education, tutoring, training and development and advancement of staff, providing support staff so teachers can teach rather than nurse or clean. Physical fitness, civic skills, financial skills - it costs money to offer these things. People talk about doing a better job evaluating teachers: it takes people to do that and people cost money. Heat or air conditioning in school buildings cost money.

It may be true there are some ways to improve the way we spend the money we have, but people must stop repeating the lie that money doesn’t matter to education. It is either deliberately false or willfully ignorant at this point.

This budget packages together several items and calls it a block funding. Here is the problem with that: in addition to eliminating formulas for distributing those funds, which has been covered here today, the fact is the money for transportation and payment of social security are not terribly flexible, which means that “basic education” will be the thing that is most flexible: it will get what is left over, after other things are paid.

The political spin has been that this is the fault of the temporary stimulus money, but in reality, the stimulus money was supposed to be used to help prevent harmful state cuts during the worst of the downturn– they paid our bills and after that money was gone, the Commonwealth was supposed to resume their role in properly funding and advancing the state basic education formula. The political tricks and fuzzy math abound: this proposal, reduces overall spending, combined several line items into one and called it an increase, knowing that the average person isn’t going to read the line by line version of the budget. It would be like doing this to your kids; last week your allowance was $10, plus I gave you $8 for lunch money and then $2 for your scout dues. But from now on, instead, I am going to give you $15 in allowance (total) as your money for the week (with regard to the elimination of stimulus money). There, I increased your allowance. Aren’t you happy?”

I realize the point of today’s hearing is to talk about this year’s budget, but any budget must be judged in terms of what it does now, and what it does for the future, including does it move the policy of the Commonwealth in the right direction.

I am attaching to my testimony our piece “Developing a Sensible Approach to Funding Our Schools.” We would submit that there are three main filters for judging any funding proposal:

• Is it aligned to standards: does it provide the education we think our students should have
• It is fiscally responsible and fair to students and communities: including using an accurate assessment of factors, it should be stable for planning purposes, transparent, protect taxpayers rights to have their money used transparently and as intended, with conditions we have decided upon, and it should reduce the reliance on property taxes because that is just a terrible way to fund basic education. It has a harmful financial effect and impacts minority communities (handout).
• Is it Constitutional and ethical: does it take politics out of it? Our Constitution actually states that we should provide a thorough and efficient system. SO there’s that. Ultimately, we need a formula so we aren’t negotiating this stuff every year. It shouldn’t be the powerful or the people who have something to bargain with that are best able to navigate our school funding “system” – it should be driven out using a methodology that insulates it from political winds.

This budget is not in the public interest. It does not remedy systematic inequities, in fact it increases them; it does not provide for, or even chart a course for providing opportunity and a level playing field; it does not provide for students to meet learning standards which means that we are reducing the prospect of broader community benefits. It does not enjoy public support. I urge the legislature to restore the $900 million and get Pennsylvania back on the right track.

Education Voters Statement on Proposed Education Budget.

HARRISBURG,PA (February 7, 2012) – Today, the Governor outlined his funding priorities in his 2012-2013 budget speech. In this proposal, the Governor continues to reduce funding to public education. For basic education, Corbett carries forward last year’s drastic $900 million cut and then proposes combining four separate lines items into a single line. Unfortunately the total funding of what these four items would have added up to if they were not combined means basic education will receive an additional cut, a cut local school districts cannot handle. In addition, PASSHE schools will receive a 20% cut, state-related schools will receive a 30% cut and Pre-K Counts and Head Start will each get a 5% cut.

“There was one right thing to do for public education in this year’s budget and that was to restore the funds that were cut from our students and our communities last year and it didn’t happen. This gives life to the notion that we were forced to make cuts last year because of tough times – if that were true, we would be getting back on track with both the funding formula and funding levels this year. The cuts to early education are disturbing and the cuts to higher education are shocking. This is ideological. I really have to question a Governor’s priorities if he isn’t willing to take care of children and provide an opportunity for them to learn, as well as think long term and help prepare our workforce for tomorrow, “ said Susan Gobreski, Executive Director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania.

Last year, the Governor proposed and passed a historic cut to education funding of about $900 million dollars, which is carried forward in this year’s budget. Class size went up in almost every community, and important programs that affect student achievement were cut, like Kindergarten, early education, arts, science, and technology. Pennsylvania had been showing steady gains in academic achievement, and the districts that had been historically the most underfunded showed the greatest gains, demonstrating the impact of targeted increases and investments in programs that produce outcomes. Gobreski said, “That is the funny thing about education, it’s really as simple as giving our students a quality opportunity – when we provide it, they learn.”

Legislators from both parties, as well as community, business and civic leaders, have been calling for the state budget to restore funding or, at minimum, stop cutting the support for education. Many legislators are scrambling to position themselves as a friend of public education, given the trend. With state cuts being so drastic, many communities have been forced to cut programs, increase class sizes or raise local taxes, the worst way to fund education. For the last couple of decades, communities have had to take care of what the state has sloughed off, which is a neat political trick for state elected officials, but communities are tired of having their local economies being played.

The Governor’s political spin has been that this is the fault of the temporary stimulus money, but in reality, the stimulus money was supposed to be used to help prevent harmful state cuts during the worst of the downturn– they paid our bills and: “After that money was gone, the Commonwealth was supposed to resume their role in properly funding the state basic education formula.” Gobreski said, “The political tricks and fuzzy math abound: they reduce overall spending, combined several line items into one and called it an increase, knowing that the average person isn’t going to read the line by line version of the budget. It would be like doing this to your kids; last week your allowance was $10, plus I gave you $8 for lunch money and then $2 for your scout dues. But from now on, instead, I am going to give you $15 in allowance (total) as your money for the week. There, I increased your allowance. Aren’t you happy?”

Education Voters is a non-partisan non-profit advocacy organization that works with parents and community leaders throughout the Commonwealth, engaging voters in advocating for strong public education policy.