Chalkbeat

‘Nobody feels good, nobody’s learning’: How high temperatures disrupt Philadelphia’s school days

2026-08-04T14:11:07+00:00

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For nearly two years, teacher Isabelle Ouyang and her colleagues have dealt with the presence of construction workers, shuffling between classrooms, stress over schedules, and a host of disruptive renovations.

Ouyang has, essentially, pardoned all that dust, because Philadelphia’s Kensington High School now has air conditioning. With a $17 million estimated price tag, it hasn’t come cheap. And she’s still worried about disruptions continuing into the next school year.

“Having AC in our school, I feel really lucky,” said Ouyang, a special education teacher. “But it felt a little bit like things were being figured out on the fly.”

As climate change leads to more extreme weather and hotter summers, ensuring students can remain safe and comfortable in Philadelphia’s old schools has become a perennial challenge. Research shows that high temperatures take a toll on student learning, attendance, and behavior.

Around 50 Philadelphia schools — or nearly one quarter of district schools — still won’t have what the district considers to be adequate cooling when the school year begins later this month. That number has shrunk over the past few years after the district spent COVID relief dollars on upgrading HVAC systems and received a $200,000 donation from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

In the last four years, the number of Philly schools without air conditioning has fallen from 118 to 52. Still, the district seems unlikely to meet its previous goal of air conditioning all its buildings by 2027. The complicated and expensive process of adding cooling to old buildings like Kensington High, which was built over a century ago, illustrates why getting there can be so challenging.

The Philadelphia district has an official plan for extreme heat that includes sending students at schools without adequate cooling to learn remotely at home when outside temperatures are forecast to reach 85 degrees or above before 9 a.m. At the end of last school year, the district used that protocol twice, moving students to remote learning for approximately 50 schools without adequate air conditioning.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said the district’s 10-year facilities plan is key to ensuring students go to school in buildings that have air conditioning and similar upgrades. It includes closing 17 schools, colocating several, and modernizing nearly 170 buildings.

“We want to get to a point where we don’t have to send kids home early” when it gets too hot out, he said during a tour of John M. Patterson Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia earlier this summer.

Patterson doesn’t have adequate cooling, but is supposed to get a $45 million upgrade under the facilities plan to increase its capacity and add air conditioning to key parts of the buildings.

District spokesperson Naima DeBrest said in a statement that the district is “shifting from separate, immediate renovations to integrating cooling upgrades into the broader, long-term modernization projects planned over the next 10 years.”

The district, however, does not yet have all the funding to pay for the upgrades at schools slated for renovations under its 10-year plan.

Adding AC to old schools can take years

Kensington High School’s HVAC upgrades included replacing aging heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, along with updating ductwork.

Separately, the building also got new windows to replace ones that had become opaque with wear.

At other schools, the process of upgrading cooling systems has also become costly and drawn out.

John F. McCloskey Elementary School in Cedarbrook was one of the dozens of schools that had to send students home to learn remotely at the end of last school year due to high temperatures, because it does not have adequate cooling.

The local utility Philadelphia Gas Works has been studying whether installing a geothermal system, which would serve the school as well as a neighboring community center, could be a solution for the school. Geothermal systems don’t require burning fossil fuels, making them favored by climate advocates.

A PGW spokesperson said the utility expects that study to be released in the coming weeks, a year and a half after the utility first announced its plans. It estimates installing the system would cost around $19 million, without tax incentives, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Though that could save the district money on gas in the long run, there is no budget or timeline yet to install it.

That means for the upcoming school year, McCloskey still won’t have adequate cooling, and kids will once again learn remotely if temperatures get too hot.

Linnea Bond, environment and health education director at the advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, has been following PGW’s work on its geothermal study for years. She said she’s glad it’s made progress, but that’s only one step.

“I don’t want them to leave these kids hanging,” she said.

High temperatures take a toll on students, staff

When temperatures climb, students do worse on tests and can have more disciplinary problems, research shows. Attendance also declines on high-heat days, studies have found.

School districts need robust heat plans to prepare for those challenges, said Allison Poulos, an associate professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. That can mean everything from ensuring staff and students have access to water to redoing schedules so school isn’t in session during the hottest times of the year.

It’s important that schools have “really thought through what resources they have, what they don’t have, and what decisions they will make,” said Poulos, who helps run the university’s HeatReady Schools initiative. “Because I think these are going to continue to persist and probably get more problematic as time goes on.”

One Philadelphia math teacher who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak by the district said the lack of air conditioning in her building frequently derails learning during the hottest months of the school year.

She’s rarely able to make significant curriculum progress on days when school goes remote due to heat, she said, because it happens with little warning. On days that are hot but don’t meet the district’s temperature threshold for closure, she notices absences spike in her classroom.

For students who do attend, the classroom heat is like an unavoidable, uncomfortable distraction.

“Nobody feels good,” she said. “Nobody’s learning.”

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania state budget includes $157 million more for Philadelphia’s schools

2026-07-13T17:59:38+00:00

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Pennsylvania school districts will receive $11.8 billion next year in the state budget Gov. Josh Shapiro signed over the weekend, a $670 million increase from last year.

The $50.8 billion budget includes an infusion of money for career training programs and special education, along with more funding for teacher training stipends and additional requirements for cyber charter schools to monitor students’ wellbeing.

But the budget, which often includes major education legislation, does not have the school cellphone ban Shapiro wanted, and less money for early childhood education than the governor sought.

The budget puts $157 million more towards Philadelphia’s schools, the state’s largest district.

In response to a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional, the budget provides a $565 million increase to districts in what’s commonly known as “adequacy funding.” It also puts $58 million more towards basic education funding and $47 million more towards special education funding.

While the overall budget is some $2 billion less than Shapiro had proposed, the final amounts for education are greater than what he initially put forward.

“To me, a quality education doesn’t just require dollars and cents, it also requires common sense,” Shapiro said during his budget address Sunday. He said that’s why he pushed to require schools to give all K-5 students 30 minutes of recess each day, a mandate that’s in the budget. Philly schools guaranteed daily recess for all district students back in February.

Mai Miksic, executive director of the Pennsylvania-based advocacy group Children First, said in a statement the budget will help schools “maintain and build on the academic progress made possible by increased adequacy funds.”

But she was disappointed that the budget “did not go far enough to support early learning.” Shapiro had initially proposed a $10 million increase to a program meant to recruit and retain childcare workers, and a $7.5 million increase to the state’s free pre-Kindergarten program, Pre-K Counts. But the final budget only included half those increases.

Laura Boyce, the Pennsylvania executive director of the advocacy group Teach Plus, said the boost to adequacy funding and teacher stipends was “something to celebrate.”

But she had hoped the budget would increase early literacy funding rather than hold it steady at $10 million. That’s a “good down payment,” Boyce said, but “not close to what we will ultimately need” to help schools meet the literacy requirements slated to kick in during the 2027-28 school year, like implementing professional development and screenings.

Over the past two years, Philadelphia students’ English language arts and literature test scores have fallen. Around one-third of students in grades 3-8 scored proficient or above in ELA on the most recent state assessments.

Some conservatives were hoping the budget would include more investment in the state’s existing school choice tax credit programs, while the deadline looms for Shapiro to say whether Pennsylvania will opt into the federal tax credit program. “Unfortunately, the budget deal does not meaningfully expand educational choice,” said Nathan Benefield, chief policy officer at the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement that he was disappointed the budget bill did not include a statewide cellphone ban. But he welcomed the additional overall funding for schools.

“We are, as ever, impatient for a faster schedule to close the adequacy gap between wealthy and non-wealthy districts once and for all,” Steinberg said.

Pennsylvania boosts funding for career training, student teachers

This year’s budget includes a $10 million increase for career and technical education programs as part of a $193 million total annual investment in workforce development. It also slightly changes testing requirements for those programs by allowing career training centers to administer the competency exams before students are in 12th grade, and therefore help them complete the programs.

Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee, applauded the changes, saying they would enable programs to enroll more students.

The budget also puts $10 million more towards the popular student-teacher stipend program, for a total of $40 million. The program has been oversubscribed in past years.

The increase means some 700 more student teachers and their cooperating teachers will receive stipends next year, according to a statement from the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

The budget also increased funding to the state’s childcare staff retention and recruitment program by $5 million for a total of $30 million.

Budget directs $120 million to K-12 mental health, safety

This year’s budget also includes $120 million for mental health and school safety improvements in K-12 schools. Last year, Shapiro’s administration approved the same amount for this category for school security updates, security personnel training, and mental health resources such as calming spaces inside schools.

Organizations that help prevent gun violence in Philadelphia and statewide will get $62.2 million from the new state budget, a similar amount to what was allocated last year. Violence prevention advocacy groups hailed the move, especially since those and similar efforts face threats on the federal level.

Last year, this funding also supported out-of-school-time activities that help children stay connected to trusted adults and reduce the risk of being exposed to violence.

The Shapiro administration credits the investment for a 35% decrease in homicides and a 40% decrease in firearm-related crimes statewide, according to Uniform Crime Reporting data cited on the state’s website.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how education spending is affecting Pennsylvania’s state budget negotiations

2026-06-30T19:33:49+00:00

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Gov. Josh Shapiro wants to include $565 million in this year’s budget to continue closing an “adequacy gap” among public schools as his fellow Democrats push a proposal to overhaul tax-credit programs that fund private school scholarships.

Republicans who control the state Senate have pushed back, calling for changes to the formula adopted two years ago to rectify the funding disparity and for an expansion of the scholarships.

While a dispute over education funding contributed to a months-long budget impasse a few years ago, one key lawmaker thinks the issue won’t be much of a sticking point, in part because lawmakers in the divided state Legislature are pursuing a less ambitious agenda.

“Last year’s education code bill was extremely dense and had a lot of things in it that we were extremely proud of,” said state Rep. Pete Schweyer, a Democrat, who chairs the House Education Committee, referencing additional oversight of cyber charter schools and a reduction in the money districts pay them.

“This year, I don’t think it’s gonna be quite as robust, but I don’t necessarily think it has to be.”

The state budget, negotiated behind closed doors by the governor’s staff and top lawmakers, is due June 30. While the major players have offered few details about negotiations publicly, they have all sounded optimistic they will avoid a prolonged impasse. Still, there remain differences of opinion, primarily on overall spending.

Some Republican lawmakers oppose the ‘adequacy gap’ formula

Looming over all discussions about education is a 2023 ruling in which a state court found Pennsylvania’s school funding approach to be unconstitutionally inequitable and ordered lawmakers to fix it.

In response, the legislature in 2024 adopted a state budget that acknowledged a $4.5 billion “adequacy” gap and instituted a formula that uses factors such as poverty and level of English proficiency to decide how much additional money a district should receive. Lawmakers have so far appropriated more than $1 billion to close the gap.

Shapiro proposed an additional $565 million for underfunded schools this year, and state House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, a Democrat, told Spotlight PA this month that passing that boost is among his “priorities.” Shapiro also pitched $50 million increases to basic education and special education funding.

But for many Republicans, the adequacy formula has become an issue. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, told Spotlight PA in early June that his caucus does not support it and that it should be reevaluated: “We view that formula as picking winners and losers.”

Schweyer said any significant changes to the formula this year would likely “elicit some sort of response from the litigants.”

Hillary Linardopoulos, policy director at the Education Law Center, one of the groups that brought the original school funding lawsuit against the state, declined to comment on the possibility of litigation should lawmakers approve a spending plan advocates deem inadequate.

ELC and other public education advocacy groups have pushed lawmakers to adopt a firm funding timeline, rather than renegotiating an adequacy payment every year. The legislature hasn’t done that.

Linardopoulos said she thinks the General Assembly should accelerate its funding, but the advocates recognize that rectifying the “decades-long injustice” takes time.

“The court’s mandate is clear, and we intend to ensure that it’s properly implemented so that kids can thrive,” Linardopoulos said.

The budget is negotiated by the governor’s office and top lawmakers from each chamber, and no one close to the talks has publicly commented on their status. Still, some Capitol insiders remain optimistic a deal could be signed as soon as early-to-mid-July. Such predictions have circulated in the past, before deep divides on certain issues spark hostilities.

Possibly the worst example in recent history happened in 2023. That year, the state Senate passed a budget that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts. Shapiro had been publicly supportive of a voucher program during his campaign, but — facing pressure from fellow Democrats — vetoed that part of the budget. That decision remains a point of tension in his relationship with GOP leaders.

With a multibillion-dollar gap expected between the state’s revenue and its expenditures, lawmakers will likely need to tap the state’s rainy day fund to offset rising costs, like education. State House Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris, a Democrat, said the public will understand.

“We know that there is a significant cost to carry with public education, as well as we know what the court has required us to do,” Harris told reporters in mid-June. “These are things that must happen.”

Democrats want more oversight of private school scholarships

Pennsylvania has for decades run programs that provide tax breaks to businesses and individuals that contribute money to educational nonprofit organizations, which then pay for students to attend private schools.

The Educational Improvement and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs have grown steadily, and the amount allocated for scholarships is currently capped at $575 million.

Last week, state Senate Republicans passed a budget-enabling tax code bill that makes several tax cuts and expands EITC by $25 million. Pittman said in an interview with WCCS Radio in Indiana County that the move was “very important for empowering parents.”

The state House, meanwhile, has passed a bill that would overhaul these tax credits and replace them with a program that its supporters say targets more funding at disadvantaged students and provides more oversight. (The overall level of funding would stay the same.)

According to the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Nikki Rivera, the legislation was inspired by an Independent Fiscal Office report from 2022 that showed the research agency did not have enough information to determine whether the credits “substantially enhance educational opportunities available to all Pennsylvania students.”

At the time, the IFO’s analysts recommended the legislature permit the state to collect student performance and demographic data so that the programs could be meaningfully evaluated.

Rivera’s bill would require the state’s auditor general to conduct compliance audits of scholarship organizations and participating private schools, while the IFO would produce reports studying overarching trends of contributors, scholarship organizations, and recipients.

“It’s the same level of detail that any public school has to provide,” she said.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank, claims those requirements are designed to “intimidate” donors, schools, and parents from participating.

Another point of contention over Rivera’s bill is the proposed 2% administrative fee on contributions to help cover the cost of running the program. Rachel Langan, senior education policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, said the fee would unnecessarily take away money from the organizations’ donations.

Schweyer, the chair of the House Education Committee, said he doesn’t “hate” the tax credit programs. He backed the more thorough reporting requirement legislation, which won support from three House Republicans, to ensure the credits are working most effectively.

“I’m not adversarial to it,” Schweyer said. “I want to expand it where it makes sense, and I want to make sure we have oversight over a massive program.”

State Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver, chair of her chamber’s Education Committee, declined to comment for this story. Her spokesperson deferred emailed questions to Senate GOP leadership.

The state’s longstanding debate over education tax credits is also being projected onto a much larger stage this year — Shapiro has until Jan. 1 to decide whether to enroll the state in a federal program that works essentially the same way as EITC. It offers individuals up to $1,700 in tax credits for contributions made toward private school scholarships.

Even if the General Assembly passes legislation to opt in, the governor’s administration must provide a list of qualifying scholarship providers before the dollars can be rolled out next year.

More than half of states have enrolled in the program, the Internal Revenue Service reported earlier this month, despite opposition from two unions representing 4.8 million educators nationwide.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick are among the Republicans urging Shapiro to sign the state up.

But the Shapiro administration has not yet made a decision. Last week, after the U.S. Treasury Department released more information regarding the program, Shapiro’s spokesperson Rosie Lapowsky said in an email that officials continue “to evaluate as we await additional information on how this will affect use of our existing tax credits, how states will be expected to administer the program, and how eligibility will be determined.”

Langan told Spotlight PA that Shapiro should enroll in the federal program “as early as possible” because families are beginning to look into school tuition rates for the next semester.

“It would just make it a much smoother rollout if we’re going to eventually opt in to do it before the school year starts,” Langan said.

Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso contributed reporting.

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. This story was funded in part thanks to the support of the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund. Learn more about how we are supported here.

Only 8% of Philly voters say public education is headed in the right direction

2026-06-23T19:35:35+00:00

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Only 8% of Philadelphia voters think that public education is headed in the right direction according to a new poll released this week.

The data shared with Chalkbeat on Tuesday of 1,029 registered Philly voters found that more than half of the respondents think the state of public education is worsening. Voters said they are unhappy with the condition of buildings, want to see more advocates pushing to improve the city’s schools, and want Mayor Cherelle Parker to be more engaged in education issues.

The online survey was commissioned by Philly for Great Public Schools, and conducted by Change Research. Philly for Great Public Schools is a new coalition led by Tamir D. Harper, a longtime education proponent and former district teacher, that advocates for traditional public, charter, and magnet schools in the city. The poll went out to voters via a series of Facebook and Instagram ads and text messages between May 27 and June 3, 2026.

The results show Philadelphians’ opinions about their public schools have soured over the last year. In a similar survey conducted by the same company in May 2025, 44% of voters said they were “very concerned” about the state of public education in the city, according to a statement from Philly for Great Public Schools. This year, 57% said the same. Overall, 81% of respondents said they are at least somewhat concerned about the state of public education, up 4 percentage points from a year prior.

The poll’s timing came during a particularly tense period for Philadelphia schools. The mayor-appointed Board of Education had just voted to close 17 schools at an explosive April meeting that drove City Council members to call for board members’ resignations and a switch to an elected board. The district had adopted a budget with millions in cuts and hundreds of teachers were being transferred to other positions — in some cases leaving the district altogether.

Harper said the poll results weren’t surprising after the year the district has had, but he said decisionmakers should take the data as a sign that they need to engage more meaningfully with parents and city residents.

“People feel like they don’t have a voice in how their children are being educated,” Harper said in an interview. “Families are scared. They wake up one day and their school may be on the list to close or it may be on the list one day and not on the list the next day.”

The poll found support for charter schools is high in the city. Among parents who responded to the survey, 63% said they support allowing new charter schools to open. Support for opening new charters was especially high among Black and Latino poll respondents (61% and 54% respectively) and those without a college degree (61%).

In the wake of the city’s budget fight about school funding, the survey found strong support for an audit of the school district at 86% of voters.

A slight majority of voters (52%) also said they opposed school closures, with 30% in support of the board’s vote to close some schools and modernize nearly 170 others.

“We have a city that is prepared to work together to address the issues. We have a city that is invested in public education, and now we need our leaders to listen,” Harper said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

340 Philadelphia school staff positions saved from cuts via last-minute city agreement

2026-06-10T22:36:41+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district has reached an agreement with the City Council and Mayor Cherelle Parker to stave off the 340 school-based position cuts it had planned for next school year.

But no additional recurring revenue source is coming under the deal, Parker said Wednesday.

Parker said the district will use $48 million in onetime funding City Council approved as part of its budget deal last week to pay for those positions next year. In the following years, Parker said she will continue to work with the City Council to find a way to generate new, recurring funds for the district. If that does not happen, the city will find the money through other budget cuts.

“There is no new predictable and recurring revenue source in the budget,” Parker said. But she said they made some tough decisions to ensure the district gets the funding to keep these positions over the next five years.

Parker did not share details about where that money would come from if there is no new recurring revenue source, but said there would be more information in the budget plan her team will release tomorrow.

The 340 positions the district planned to cut included climate staff, special education aides, counselors, and teachers. Though no staff would have been laid off under the plan, staff would have had to find new positions and their empty positions would not be filled.

Educators and public school advocates have spent the last few months warning district leaders that the cuts would upend schools, drive educators out of the city, and leave students with less support at a time when they desperately need it.

The deal announced Wednesday would not reverse the 220 building substitute position cuts or the 130 central office position cuts the district adopted.

Last week, Superintendent Tony Watlington told council members that the district could not restore the school-based positions without finding sources of recurrent multiyear funding, according to a memo Chalkbeat obtained.

He argued relying on onetime stopgap funding to cover annual costs such as salaries could negatively impact the district’s financial outlook.

But on Wednesday, standing beside Parker and Council President Kenyatta Johnson, he said he was grateful to accept the deal and called it “Christmas in June.”

Many school staff were told to find new positions months ago due to the budget cuts. Now, the district plans to work with principals as well as the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to fill those positions again.

Figuring out how to fill the restored positions “is a great problem to have,” Watlington said.

Philadelphia budget deal will not restore hundreds of school staff cuts, superintendent says

2026-06-04T19:59:30+00:00

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School District of Philadelphia leaders say $50 million in one-time funding approved by the City Council will not restore hundreds of staff positions the district is cutting, according to a memo obtained by Chalkbeat.

The City Council gave initial approval on Thursday to a $7.1 billion budget deal for the 2027 fiscal year, but rejected Mayor Cherelle Parker’s proposed rideshare tax that her administration said would generate $48 million in its first year and would stop the elimination of 340 staff positions at Philly schools.

Instead, the council sent $48 million from other budget sources in a one-time allocation to the school district to stop the cuts.

But later on Thursday, the City Council received a memo from Superintendent Tony Watlington saying that the funding was insufficient because it did not address the “underlying drivers of staff reductions.”

“The District cannot restore the 340 school based positions without a commitment to recurring and predictable funding over multiple years,” Watlington wrote in the memo.

He also wrote that the district’s finance team believes relying on a one-time funding to support recurring expenditures like salaries “may be viewed as a structural budget imbalance and could negatively affect the District’s long-term financial outlook, borrowing costs, and future capacity to invest in school facilities.”

Watlington’s memo does not address how the district could use or plans to use the $48 million instead.

Councilmembers quickly denounced the letter.

Education Chair Isaiah Thomas called Watlington’s memo “offensive and disrespectful” in a speech from the City Council floor on Thursday.

“For me that’s very, very shortsighted and doesn’t show leadership,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said of the letter. He said district leaders should welcome the $50 million and reverse the cuts.

Standing alongside Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater at City Hall Thursday, Parker called the $48 million a “band-aid” solution that would not solve the district’s persistent financial challenges: “It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter which is a $300 million structural deficit.”

Johnson said councilmembers remain committed “to work for long-term recurring revenue for the school district.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia city council approves budget without rideshare tax for schools

2026-06-04T17:36:18+00:00

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Philadelphia City Councilmembers had been warning for months that Mayor Cherelle Parker’s proposed rideshare tax was dead on arrival. On Thursday, they put it to rest.

City Council gave initial approval to a $7.1 billion budget deal Thursday that leaves out the $1 tax on companies like Uber and Lyft that Parker said would have generated $48 million to stop staff cuts at Philly schools. Instead, councilmembers’ will draw a one-time infusion of $48 million from other budget sources for the school district. Members did approve Parker’s proposal for a use-and-occupancy tax on cell phone towers, which her administration says will send $2.4 million annually to the district.

That $50 million deal for fiscal year 2027 may be too little too late for a school district already in turmoil. The school board approved a district budget last week that included millions in cuts. Earlier last month, board members approved a plan to close 17 schools.

A coalition of advocacy groups and labor union organizers rallied outside of City Hall on June 2, 2026 in support of Mayor Cherelle Parker's rideshare tax:

Several educators told Chalkbeat forced transfer decisions have already kicked off and the district’s hiring process for next school year has reportedly been thrown into chaos. And while that $50 million may save some staff positions, 220 building substitute positions will still be cut. Enrollment declines mean some schools are eliminating class offerings and losing school-based workers beyond what the rideshare tax would have supposedly covered.

School district spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ President Arthur Steinberg said Thursday that Council’s deal may staunch some of the budgetary bleeding, but without a source of recurring revenue like the rideshare tax, the school district will continue to face financial challenges.

Failing to establish a source of recurring revenue for the district “will accelerate the exodus of teachers and exacerbate the shortage,” Steinberg said. “One-time fixes will not cut it.”

Councilmembers also approved a resolution Thursday calling for hearings to explore finding recurring revenue sources for the district in the future.

Meanwhile, public school advocates spent the week knocking on council members’ office doors, urging members to budget for more than $50 million citing the district’s $300 million deficit and urgent needs.

“A vote for less than $75 million means building substitutes are left behind and schools facing enrollment-based cuts get no relief,” Shanée Garner, executive director of the Lift Every Voice parent advocacy group, said in a statement. “It means the children and schools carrying the greatest burden today will continue carrying it tomorrow.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Why switching Philadelphia to an elected school board would be very complicated

2026-06-03T20:42:06+00:00

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Furious over the Philadelphia Board of Education’s vote to close several schools, City Council Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas wants to explore changing the board from one appointed by the mayor to one that’s elected.

But doing so would be an immensely complicated and politically daunting process. State lawmakers would need to pass legislation that the governor would need to sign. The mayor would need to give up the power of appointing board members, and voters would have to approve this change.

And switching to an elected board could also strip the City Council of much of its influence over the district. That’s because those and other legal changes could ultimately grant the school board major authority it now lacks: the power to tax.

The proposal from Thomas follows a citywide uproar over the district’s decision to close 17 schools, which he vehemently opposed; he’s promised to sue to halt the closures, although no such suit has materialized so far.

His push to overhaul how school board members are selected highlights longstanding conflicts between different political power centers in the city. It also channels concerns that unlike for every other school district in the state, Philadelphia residents lack direct representation when the board makes significant decisions about spending, charter school expansion, curriculum mandates, desegregation initiatives, and more.

In the current setup, the school board members and the superintendent must go every year to the mayor and council to push for a share of city taxes sufficient to help the district meet the needs of its students, after many years of what a court deemed were inadequate levels of state funding that violated the Pennsylvania Constitution.

That forces board members and district leaders into an annual tussle with the council over the budget. What’s made that even more stressful is the district’s longstanding structural deficit. For 2026-27, the board just adopted a $4.6 billion budget with $225 million in cuts as it attempts to cope with a projected shortfall of $300 million.

All that means if the school board gained its own taxing power and could rely less on city government, it “would be a huge structural shift in how the city and the school district operates,” said Christopher McGinley, a former Philadelphia school board member who also served as superintendent in two suburban districts with elected boards.

It’s unclear what if anything would convince city officials to relinquish their current power over school funding and school board members. Thomas said last month while he is in favor of an elected school board, he does not support giving it taxation power.

Mayor Cherelle Parker picked all nine current board members at the start of her term. Nominees are first vetted by an Education Nominating Panel, which is also appointed by the mayor. They are then subject to the “advice and consent” of the City Council. (Board member Joyce Wilkerson was appointed by Parker but never got the council’s approval, and now serves as a “holdover” member, which has caused additional controversy.)

Parker’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An elected school board might spawn new political problems in Philadelphia even if it eases current ones. Still, some believe that the existing process is inadequate for dealing with the district’s myriad challenges.

Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, a longtime critic of the board, pointed out that at neighborhood hearings on the proposed school closures, nearly every speaker opposed them, to no avail. To her, an elected Philadelphia school board is also an issue of fairness.

“Why should every other school district in Pennsylvania have an elected board and Philadelphia does not?” she said

Pennsylvania school boards have taxing power — except Philly’s

The most direct influence an elected and not appointed board could have on schools in the city would be the power to raise money through taxation.

In all the state’s other 500 school districts, the elected boards of education levy school taxes, while municipal and county governments raise taxes for other needs such as infrastructure and social services. The educational and civic governing bodies are separate entities with their own taxing power, geographic boundaries, and sources of revenue. For instance, Montgomery County has 62 municipalities and 22 school districts.

Shifting from an appointed to an elected school board by itself would not automatically include the power to tax. To give an elected school board taxation power would require a vote by the state legislature and amendments to the state school code. It would also require voters to approve changes to the 1965 education section of the city’s Home Rule Charter.

But unlike other jurisdictions, Philadelphia is its own county as well as its own school district. That means even if an elected school board were granted the power to tax by state government and voters, it would lead to the City Council and Board of Education drawing on the same sources of tax revenue.

Richard Feder, the former chief of legislation in the city law department, said all of those changes would mean “cutting City Council out of the process” of funding schools, which would likely lead to the kind of staunch opposition from the council that Thomas has already expressed.

Besides the considerable political problems, Feder said he doesn’t think giving an elected board taxation power would be a good idea fiscally.

“I spent my career fighting for more school funding,” Feder said, “but we shouldn’t have two competing taxing bodies fighting over the same limited tax base.”

Susan Gobreski, the former head of the advocacy group Education Voters PA, said Philadelphians already elect the officials who provide the funding for schools. The council “is not a single-issue body” like the school board and can put all the city’s needs into perspective, she said.

At the same time, she said, the feeling that the board is accountable to no one is real. Even if an elected board ended up lacking taxation power, Gobreski said allowing the public to pick its members would still be worthwhile so voters could feel they had a say in choosing who to hold accountable for decisions around education policy.

Electing school board members could open Pandora’s box

But there’d be one more complication about a change to an elected board. Feder said to meet state requirements, voters in Philadelphia would have to approve a change to the city charter to allow for a partisan election. Or state voters would have to approve an amendment to the school code allowing Philadelphia to hold a nonpartisan election.

McGinley, who served on the School Reform Commission that previously ran Philly schools and was superintendent in Lower Merion and Cheltenham, worries that electing school board members would open a political Pandora’s box by giving more leverage to interest groups “that would play their cards” on various issues.

But Elaine Simon, a retired urban studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has co-authored an upcoming book on the last wave of school closures in 2013, said an elected board, especially one with regional representatives, would be more sensitive to the needs of different areas in the city.

“Now, the school board members are not representing a neighborhood,” she said.

Unsurprisingly, Board of Education President Reginald Streater is skeptical of what benefits Philadelphia would gain by electing its school board members.

He said more time should elapse before contemplating another major upheaval of district governance. It only recently emerged from an even less democratic period when a state commission ran city schools from 2001 to 2018 before returning control to a local school board.

He pointed out that the state is moving toward school funding adequacy after a historic Commonwealth Court decision, and that in Philadelphia measures including test scores, attendance rates, and dropout rates are improving.

Conditions “are getting better … why change this now?” he said.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia bureau chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this article.

Philadelphia school board adopts $4.6B budget with millions in cuts

2026-05-29T00:03:29+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education approved a $4.6 billion budget Thursday night that includes millions in cuts and will result in schools losing climate staff, teachers, counselors, and substitutes.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said cutting some $225 million is necessary to begin to plug the district’s $300 million budget deficit while balancing rising salaries, healthcare premiums, and charter school payments. No staff will be laid off, Watlington has previously said. Instead, teachers and school-based staff might be reassigned to other vacant positions across the district.

“I’m agnostic to how we get the dollars, but we desperately need additional revenue,” Watlington said.

The budget passed 8-0.

The cuts come amid a cloud of bad news for Philly schools. Ahead of the meeting, City Council members rallied outside of the district building and blasted board members for their April vote approving the district’s plan to close 17 schools starting in 2027. Enrollment declines and other funding challenges mean schools will lose more staff, advanced placement classes, and after-school programs than the district is discussing.

Board member Joyce Wilkerson blamed state and federal underfunding for the district’s financial position. Philly is the only school district in the state that can’t raise its own tax revenue and is nearly entirely dependent on state and city funding.

“It’s a national disgrace, and a disgrace to this commonwealth” that Philly schools don’t receive more public funding, Wilkerson said.

Voting to approve the budget amounts to doubling down on the closure plan, City Council member Kendra Brooks said.

City Council member Jamie Gauthier called for the six board members who voted for the closure plan to resign. “We need a school board that is actually accountable to our community,” she said.

Though elected officials are publicly fuming about the closures, no City Council member has proposed a plan to help the district close its budget deficit.

Mayor Cherelle Parker has been pushing a proposed $1 per ride tax on Ubers and Lyfts to funnel more money to the school district. But the tax has become one of the central political battles in the city, and city council members do not appear poised to approve it as is.

Thursday’s vote locks the district’s budget cuts in while negotiations around the rideshare tax continue.

City Council member and Chair of the city’s Education Committee Isaiah Thomas said at Thursday’s rally that the rideshare tax is not part of his negotiation strategy.

Also on Thursday, the board approved a $266 million amended capital budget that lays out major renovations, building additions, system replacements, and playground construction for dozens of schools to be paid for with bonds. The district’s facilities plan intends to modernize some 170 schools in addition to the closures, but there’s no guaranteed funding for that plan, so it’s unclear how realistic those projections are.

The city has a July 1 deadline to enact a budget. Thomas said if school board members and district officials don’t come back to the table to discuss changes to the closure plan, council members will continue to put them on notice.

“We’ll just keep going,” he said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Should Congress spend big to rebuild schools? This $500 billion campaign proposal will be a tough sell.

2026-05-18T10:00:00+00:00

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America’s schools are crumbling.

There’s black mold in buildings in Alaska and Maine. Classrooms in New Jersey and Texas lack proper heating and cooling. And there are persistent plumbing problems in Idaho and Pennsylvania.

America’s aging school infrastructure is by one measure a nearly $90 billion problem. Federal leaders have acknowledged it since at least the 1980s but have declined to address it. Local school districts and state governments also haven’t solved it — in some cases, even after being ordered by a court to do so.

It’s a problem so big that one congressional candidate running to represent parts of Philadelphia — where the cost of repairing and upgrading public schools could cost up to $10 billion — is making it the centerpiece of his campaign. After struggling to find solutions in the Pennsylvania Legislature, state Sen. Sharif Street, a Democrat, believes only the federal government has the resources to tackle this issue. He thinks a $500 billion block grant proposal could find bipartisan support in a Congress and a country deeply divided on the federal government’s role in education.

“If we don’t address this at a federal level and come up with a massive amount of money to do so, we’re going to constantly be in a space of choosing all bad options,” Street said.

Those who lobby for the issue say Street’s proposal could put thousands of people to work, boost test scores, and strengthen communities. Street thinks it could — and must — be the nation’s next interstate highway project.

To make his case in Congress, Street must first get through a tough Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District on May 19. The winner of the primary is the heavy favorite to win the November election.

Regardless of whether Street wins the seat, advocates say it’s rare for a congressional candidate to make school infrastructure a key issue in a pitch to voters.

“It is absolutely viable, if Congress has the will to do it, and it would be transformative for America’s families and communities for decades to come,” said Ally Talcott, executive director of the Build America’s School Infrastructure Coalition, of Street’s proposal. “I think it is quite possibly one of the areas that could bring the country together.”

The centerpiece of Pennsylvania Sen. Sharif Street's congressional campaign is a $500 billion proposal to fund school construction and maintenance.

But Street is wading into a debate where others have previously failed to make progress. Convincing conservatives to support sending $500 billion for school facilities through a Department of Education the Trump administration is working to dismantle would be a tough sell, even if local bond measures for school infrastructure continue to do well at the ballot box.

R. Richard Geddes, a nonresident senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute specializing in infrastructure policy, said he thinks school construction and maintenance is “a huge sleeper issue” that few are paying close attention to.

Still, for a proposal like Street’s to succeed and that money be spent efficiently, Geddes there should be conditions. He suggested requiring municipalities to bundle projects like Pennsylvania did to build 550 bridges, or setting up a federal credit program like one that provides loans for highway and railroad projects.

Asking thousands of local education agencies to apply for some of the $500 billion pot would be “a mess,” and those districts wouldn’t reap the benefits of scale, Geddes said.

Cities and municipalities should also consider public-private partnerships, Geddes said. That could look like attaching a privately owned gym or coffee shop to a school building to generate revenue that could pay for a portion of the building maintenance.

Geddes said that could come with its own controversy, but “it would still be better than what we have, which is a lack of creative thinking.”

State and local funding lags for school infrastructure

To accommodate the baby boom generation, cities and towns built thousands of new schools. Since then, the fertility rate has declined, and post-pandemic K-12 enrollment has been shrinking. That’s left many school buildings half empty and costly to maintain.

State and local lawmakers typically patch up the worst infrastructure issues with small-dollar grants and emergency funds. But they haven’t come close to fully funding their school facilities’ needs. As of 2023, 13 states contributed less than 10% toward local district investments in school construction and capital improvements, according to the 21st Century School Fund’s State of the Schools report from last year. And 10 states made no contributions at all.

It’s estimated that the average annual gap between what districts are spending on their public school facilities and what is needed is nearly $90 billion nationally, according to the State of the Schools report.

It’s a crucial education issue that has been politically “orphaned,” despite recent history indicating it can be relatively popular with voters said Mary Filardo, a school construction finance expert and founder of the 21st Century School Fund. Voters approved nearly 80% of bond measures for school facilities in 2025, and they approved nearly 74% in 2024.

In May, Texas voters approved a $6.2 billion school bond — the largest in state history.

But local funding hasn’t been sufficient to meet all the needs. And in some places, like Philly, the school district lacks taxing authority altogether.

In Street’s hometown of Philadelphia, the school facilities crisis has become one of the most pressing political issues in the city. With a $300 million budget deficit and declining student population, the district is moving forward with a $3 billion plan to close 17 schools and modernize nearly 170 others.

But right now, the district can’t pay for it. The district’s annual budget is $4.5 billion, yet estimates for the total cost to repair and upgrade its schools range from $5 billion to nearly $10 billion.

“Philadelphia is one of the great American cities. And it’s like, how did you let this get this bad?” said Filardo.

Pennsylvania’s previous program to fund school repairs, known as PlanCon, stopped receiving funding in 2015. A new version has never received state funding.

“There’s no way that the city or the state at the local level can actually fully address those needs,” Street said. “We just can’t do it.”

Street said his proposal, which he acknowledged is a starting point and could end up being much smaller than $500 billion, would have the Department of Education send out funding through an as-yet-undeveloped formula that factors in local population and needs.

The Philadelphia school district spends about $770 million on facilities a year, mostly on debt service and emergency repairs when roofs collapse or boilers fail, Filardo said. Those emergency repairs can end up costing more than regular maintenance and upkeep.

Filardo says for districts like Philly it’s a bit of a paradox: “They’re not spending enough, but they’re spending a lot, and they’re not getting as good a value from what they are spending.”

Geddes said when cities and towns are faced with budget crises, “the easiest thing to do in the world is defer maintenance.” That goes for roads, sidewalks, and electrical grids as well as schools.

He suggested one condition of receiving federal funding could be locking in contracts that would commit municipalities to funding 10 or 12 years of proper maintenance in advance.

That maintenance will be critical, Filardo warned, as construction costs rise and the effects of climate change batter buildings and put extra pressure on electrical systems.

School infrastructure funded with ‘hodgepodge’ of federal policies

Talcott of the infrastructure coalition said the way the country currently treats school construction funding is via “a hodgepodge of federal policies.” Funding goes out piecemeal through several agencies and departments including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy.

A bill in Congress aims to take on the problem, but it’s a far cry from the $500 billion Street is seeking.

The Rebuild America’s Schools Act of 2026 co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, would set aside $100 billion in direct grants and $30 billion in bonding authority over five years for school construction.

But Scott, the ranking member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said gaining support for the legislation has felt like an uphill battle. The bill currently has no Republican cosponsors and hasn’t had a hearing. Scott and other lawmakers have introduced a version of the bill four times since 2019.

“If the locality can’t afford it and the state’s not doing it, then it’s either going to be the federal government or it won’t get done,” Scott said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Billionaire and Republican megadonor is funding scholarships for students at closing Philly schools

2026-05-15T17:20:33+00:00

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An organization funded by Pennsylvania billionaire and Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass is offering scholarships for Philly students displaced by school closures to enroll in private schools.

This week, the Yass Prize — an organization founded by Yass and his wife Janine — announced new “Opportunity Knocks” scholarships. The scholarships will award $8,000 each year through high school graduation for 500 students whose schools are being closed under the district’s recently approved facilities plan.

Caroline Allen, director of the Yass Prize, said the scholarships are intended to provide families with stability during a time of uncertainty in the district.

“We’re really capitalizing on this time,” Allen said. Though no schools will close until 2027, Allen said “we don’t want to wait for two years for these schools to close down to do something.”

Allen said students who are deemed eligible and receive the scholarships could attend any of the 16 private schools in the city that have received the Yass Prize and have been “vetted” as “sustainable, transformational, outstanding and permissionless.” Those private schools are already preparing to receive an influx of students from district schools that are closing or merging, Allen said.

Yass is the richest person in the state and is well known for his support of charter schools and school vouchers. Yass critics in the public education advocacy space have condemned the scholarships as attempts to lure students away from the public school system.

Aly Shaw, senior research analyst at the LittleSis Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit research firm, said she’s been tracking Yass’s political spending and was not surprised to see his name on scholarships aimed at drawing students away from public schools.

“This is the disaster capitalism playbook exactly,” Shaw said, referring to the exploitation of crises for profit. She pointed to Yass’s public support for school privatization and aversion to paying taxes as actions that she said have drained funding from public schools. The scholarships are evidence of Yass “taking advantage of a disaster that he created to promote private schools,” Shaw said.

The scholarship applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to the first 500 students who complete all required steps, including an “eligibility review” and school enrollment applications, Allen said.

Through the Center for Education Reform, a group that supports vouchers and similar policies, the Yass Prize has awarded over $60 million to more than 225 organizations across 45 states since 2021.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Feud over Philadelphia’s school closure plan leads to threats against district funding

2026-04-22T22:08:29+00:00

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In the hours before the Philadelphia Board of Education is scheduled to vote on its school closure plan, political threats and finger-pointing have reached a fever pitch.

City Councilmembers who say they were caught off-guard by the board’s sudden decision to hold the vote to close 17 schools this week have summoned Superintendent Tony Watlington and Board President Reginald Streater to multiple budget hearings, where they have threatened district funding. They say they felt misled by district leaders and — as Councilmember Nina Ahmad put it — “sandbagged.”

Meanwhile, at rallies to save individual schools from closure, state lawmakers have declared that they have long memories and will not forget the outcome of Thursday’s vote. They’ve said if the board votes to close beloved schools in their districts, they’ll be less likely to advocate for increased state aid for Philly schools.

“The administration, the legislative body, and the school district all look like you’re fighting against each other,” said Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who at a Wednesday hearing asked Streater to delay the planned vote as a signal of political goodwill.

Streater refused to accept or reject the request, saying he would confer with the board members and come to a decision before Thursday.

The fiery political rhetoric signals that the relationship between city government, school board members, and district leaders has been damaged. Still, there are few alternate proposals to get the district the money it says it would need to maintain buildings and close its budget hole. And as angry as elected leaders are about the situation, many of those same officials are among the biggest champions of education funding who might be loath to punish the district by cutting school aid or withholding their support for increasing it.

“I don’t want to talk about school funding until we get a facilities plan that we all agree upon,” Councilmember and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas told Chalkbeat. “You can’t tell us that we have to get in line with your facilities plan and then tell us we have to get in line with your funding plan. That’s disingenuous.”

The only proposal to increase city funding for the school district on the table right now is Mayor Cherelle Parker’s $1 rideshare tax, which at least one councilmember has said is “dead on arrival” if the closure plan moves forward as written. That proposal would provide an estimated $54 million to offset 340 planned staff cuts — a drop in the bucket for a district facing a $300 million deficit and which has been chronically underfunded by some $1.8 billion annually, according to a Commonwealth Court judge.

Members spent Tuesday and Wednesday questioning and excoriating Watlington, Streater, and the city’s Chief Education Officer Debora Carrera. But when it comes to voting to send the district money, “we always come through,” Councilmember Cindy Bass said at Wednesday’s budget hearing.

At that same hearing, Parker called for unity but did not back down from her tax proposal that has become increasingly unpopular at the City Council.

“I know it’s good theater for people to see what they consider to be our going to war, the administration, versus the council, the legislative branch versus the executive branch in opposition, with the school board in opposition with the school superintendent,” Parker said.

For many elected leaders, the issue might be a defining feature of their time in office. Their speeches over the last few months at rallies to keep schools from closing may help them get attention from families and latch onto a cause that’s spurring civic engagement across the city.

Parker, who appointed all of the board members, is up for reelection in 2027. All 17 City Councilmembers have indicated they intend to seek reelection in 2027, and this year, every member of the state House of Representatives is on the ballot.

“As we go through budget season in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we will remember that vote on Thursday,” state Rep. Morgan Cephas, a Democrat, warned board members at a Tuesday rally to keep Lankenau Environmental Science High School open.

Still, no City Councilmember has put forth a plan to help the district close its budget deficit or allocate more money to prevent closures.

“It’s complex for y’all. It’s complex for us. We’re trying to work as a partnership, and everybody’s gotta do a little bit of give and take,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Wednesday.

Education advocates say councilmembers could draw on the city’s budget surplus, shift the amount of tax revenue set aside for the district, or adjust the split of the city’s soda tax revenue to send more money to schools, for example. Thomas told Chalkbeat Wednesday he won’t entertain alternatives until they reach common ground with the facilities plan.

But holding up all city funding for the district appears unlikely.

Bass said Wednesday that not one councilmember “has taken a single vote against any level of funding” for the district in the past.

Thomas said if the board moves forward with a vote on the closure plan Thursday, he’s prepared to consider “plenty of options.”

Chalkbeat reporter Rebecca Redelmeier contributed to this story.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Sports, AP, and the arts: Here are the looming budget cuts Philadelphia school leaders aren’t discussing

2026-04-22T15:20:13+00:00

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Philadelphia school leaders have repeated one stat since the district’s budgeting process began last month: 340 full-time school-based positions will be eliminated next year if the district doesn’t get more funding.

But those cuts are only one piece of the puzzle. Now that principals are making their budgets, educators said the result is that schools are planning to cut many additional positions and programs that district officials are not talking about. Teachers and principals say that means tougher times for students and staff: crowded classrooms, more dangerous hallways, and fewer opportunities for learning.

Some schools are cutting class offerings, like art and Advanced Placement courses. Others say their schools will eliminate after-school programs. And though district leaders have promised no teachers will lose their jobs, some worry that there won’t be appropriate openings for them — leading to teachers leaving the district.

The breakdown of cuts the district shared with Mayor Cherelle Parker’s office and some members of City Council last week, which Chalkbeat obtained, largely focused on cuts resulting from the elimination of pandemic relief funds and extra funding sent to a few struggling schools.

It showed that fewer than five positions would be cut at most schools to plug the district’s funding hole.

But that breakdown did not include budget reductions from schools’ enrollment decline and other funding changes that happen annually. The amount of money the district allocates each school is largely determined by how many students it projects will enroll there.

Funding staff positions has also become more expensive, meaning the same budgets from last year won’t stretch to cover the same number of staff.

At Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, for example, teacher Alex Kopp, the teachers union representative in the building, said around 10 staff — including nine teachers and one climate staff — have received notices that they must find positions at other schools.

“It’s completely chaotic in terms of us planning anything,” Kopp said. The school will lose its athletic director, which means the school would offer no sports. It is also cutting all extracurriculars next year because there is no funding for them. Beeber’s principal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over the past decade, enrollment in Philadelphia public schools has fallen by around 17,000 students, a roughly 13% drop. As district enrollment is projected to continue to decline over the next decade, some schools will likely continue to be hit hard by the resulting enrollment-based budget cuts.

Schools generally have to rework their budgets every year based on enrollment, and some make cuts. But educators said this year, the additional cuts from the district’s plan have made matters much worse.

At Olney High School, Principal Michael Roth said the school — which has lost around 200 students over the past two years — is cutting more than a dozen staff members next year. That’s due to a combination of the district’s budget cuts and enrollment-related funding changes at the school.

Roth said the cuts include teachers who offer AP courses and are involved with the school’s dual enrollment college credit program.

“It’s not just that you’re losing staff, you’re losing a piece of your community that families and students have connected to or related to for a long period of time,” Roth said at a City Hall press conference Tuesday. “We’re losing people but we’re also losing excellence.”

District leaders have said the budget cuts this year are financially necessary. “Without these interventions, future District expenditures will grow faster than revenues due to rising salaries, charter school payments, and healthcare cost increases,” district spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement.

Some cuts could be reversed if the city or state allocates more money to the district. But principals and educators have told Chalkbeat the uncertainty has already started to drive teachers out of the district.

“Who’s going to want to work in the district?” Kopp asked.

Schools lose programs under planned budget cuts

Some students say they’re already mourning the teachers and programs their schools are set to lose.

Adrianelly Mercado, a 10th grader at Olney High School, said before joining the school, she didn’t know much about dual enrollment programs and Advanced Placement courses that would help her earn college credit. But one of her teachers helped her access those opportunities.

Now, that teacher’s position would be eliminated under the school’s budget for next year. The future of Olney’s dual enrollment program is uncertain as well.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Mercado said during a rally against the staffing cuts outside Olney on Tuesday. “I hope that these teachers can stay here and help us have a great education.”

Students at Philadelphia's Olney High School say they worry they'll lose access to the school's dual enrollment programs due to the school's planned staffing cuts.

The Board of Education hasn’t yet signed off on the budget. But school leaders have already told teachers if their position is planned for elimination, and that they should apply elsewhere.

Emily Griest, a high school art teacher at Hill-Freedman World Academy, said that right before a parent-teacher conference with a family whose kid thrived in her art class, her school notified her that it’s planning to eliminate her position. If her position disappears, her students would not have access to an art curriculum.

“I was working really hard to expand the art department there to give kids more opportunities,” she said. “And instead, it became a conversation of, well, the choice is being taken away from students.”

Now, her plan is to look for another position teaching high school art in the district and “hope for the best,” she said.

There’s a chance schools end up getting more money next year if the City Council passes Parker’s proposed $1-per-ride tax on rideshares. The tax would funnel $48 million annually to the district. Superintendent Tony Watlington has said that would enable the district to avoid cutting 340 school-based positions.

But during a hearing on the rideshare tax at the City Council on Tuesday, many members seemed skeptical. Councilmember Curtis Jones labeled the proposal as “DOA,” or dead on arrival, and that by his count the proposal did not have the votes in council to pass as written.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philly mayor now says proposed Uber tax could save all school-based jobs on the chopping block

2026-04-15T20:02:18+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and Superintendent Tony Watlington say they’ve found a way to save all the school-based staff the district is planning to cut.

But the district’s proposal to preserve those jobs hinges on Parker’s proposed $1 per ride tax on rideshare companies like Uber that the tech company is already fighting to stop. And the City Council must still approve the proposed tax hike.

Parker and Watlington’s announcement Wednesday doesn’t change how much the tax would generate for the district. But Parker said the district “was able to make adjustments” to their budget that would save all school-based positions from elimination if the tax goes through.

In the meantime, without a guarantee of more funding, schools are telling some teachers their positions are likely to be eliminated.

Watlington’s draft budget for next fiscal year that he shared last month slashed school spending by $225 million. The proposal included cutting 340 school-based staff, 130 central office staff and 220 building substitute positions, as well as some contracts.

Watlington said the aim was to eliminate the district’s $300 million budget deficit by 2030, and close the funding hole left from pandemic relief dollars drying up.

But Parker later said she opposed the sweeping cuts and proposed a $1 rideshare tax to funnel $48 million annually to the district. At the time, school officials said the tax increase would save 240 school-based positions from elimination, but 100 positions would still be cut.

Without providing more details, Parker and Watlington now say they’ve found the money to prevent all of the proposed cuts to school-based positions.

“That is something for us to be proud of,” Parker said Wednesday. “That’s if we can actually make it a reality.”

Since Parker proposed the rideshare tax, Uber has mounted a hefty ad campaign against it.

In a statement, Uber spokesperson Jazmin Kay pushed back on Parker’s assertion that rideshare companies have the option of absorbing the cost for their customers.

“This is a tax on the rider’s transaction, not a fee on the business, despite the administration’s attempt to frame it otherwise,” Kay said.

Watlington said if the City Council approves the tax, the district would reverse the budget cuts that would result in schools losing climate staff, teachers, counselors, and other school-based staff. The district would still eliminate building substitutes and central office staff.

Wednesday’s announcement was also Parker’s attempt to signal to state lawmakers that the city is doing its part to fund its schools. “We’re not just going hat in hand to Harrisburg,” she said.

Philadelphia mayor increases her proposed rideshare tax to help patch school district’s budget

2026-03-23T21:16:48+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker wants to increase her previously proposed rideshare tax to stave off the school district’s plan to cut hundreds of staff positions.

Eliminating all those positions “is not acceptable to me,” Parker said at a press conference at Delaplaine McDaniel School on Monday. “We have to keep these staff members in schools where they’re very much needed.”

Parker’s initial blueprint for next year’s budget, which she released March 12, included a tax of 20 cents per ride purchased through popular apps like Uber and Lyft that originate within city limits. It would have earmarked the estimated $9.6 million in resulting revenues for schools.

Shortly after that announcement, district officials released their initial budget proposal for next fiscal year. It included sweeping cuts, including eliminating 340 school-based positions.

On Monday, Parker said she wanted to increase the rideshare tax to $1 per ride beginning in January, which would save 240 of those school-based positions from elimination, school officials said. That includes approximately 130 teachers, 55 student climate staff, and 55 other school-based positions.

But even the higher tax rate on rideshares wouldn’t solve the district’s budget crisis by itself. After accounting for the $1-per-ride tax, the district would still plan to cut 100 school-based positions in the coming year, as well as 130 central office staff and 220 building substitute positions. Teachers would not be laid off, but would be reshuffled to fill vacant positions.

The rideshare tax would result in $48 million annually for the school district beginning in fiscal year 2028. But the district has a $300 million budget deficit, which Superintendent Tony Watlington said is the result of decades of underfunding combined with the end of federal pandemic relief funds.

Watlington is also looking to fund a proposed $2.8 billion district facilities plan which would close 18 schools and renovate more than one hundred others.

“If we don’t do something, and we don’t get this help from the mayor’s initiative, we know that our expenditures will grow faster than our revenues,” Watlington said at the press conference alongside Parker on Monday.

Parker said she would leave it up to rideshare companies, like Uber and Lyft, to decide whether they would pass the tax onto users.

Parker announced that the new tax would also provide $3 million annually to help fund free SEPTA transit passes for some school staff, including school climate staff, support staff, and maintenance staff. But she didn’t specify what exactly would make staff eligible for the free passes.

Monday’s announcement comes weeks after Parker released her initial budget plan for fiscal year 2027 to the City Council. That plan included the initial rideshare tax increase and a modification to tax calculations for cell towers which Parker’s administration says would bring in an additional $2.4 million annually for schools.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority already charges rideshare companies a 1.4% fee on gross receipts. Two-thirds of that revenue goes to the school district. In 2023, the tax generated $6 million for the city’s schools, according to a parking authority report.

Parker’s proposal is not a done deal. The new tax will need City Council approval. The city’s deadline to pass a budget is June 30. The school district is expected to release its own budget summary for the upcoming fiscal year later this week.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Here are the budget cuts Philadelphia school leaders are proposing for next year

2026-03-13T15:10:26+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district must make deep cuts to plug a $300 million budget hole, officials said this week.

Superintendent Tony Watlington told reporters no teachers would be laid off in the round of proposed cuts he shared this week. But for the 2026-27 school year, hundreds of district employees would be reassigned to fill vacant positions and an already-lean central office will shrink further.

Philly’s school budget crisis is the result of decades of underfunding and the end of federal pandemic relief funds, coupled with rising teacher salaries, charter school payments, and increased health care costs, Watlington and district Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbstman told reporters Wednesday. That means the school district is currently spending more money than it’s taking in.

The district proposes eliminating all of its approximately 220 building substitute positions and reassigning another 340 school-based positions, like some climate staff and special education aides, to other roles. Those two changes combined would save $56 million.

Some 130 vacant central office positions would be cut, outside contracts would be reduced, and other central office “budget efficiencies” would result in $130 million in savings, Watlington said. Those budget efficiencies would include combining some administrative teams, reassessing property casualty insurance, and changing the way the district approves travel expenses among other savings.

The district would also end two programs championed by former superintendents that gave additional resources and staff to low-achieving schools to help them improve: The former Acceleration Network, previously known as the turnaround network, and the System of Great Schools.

The district’s goal is to eliminate its deficit by cutting $225 million in fiscal 2027 and an additional $20 million in each subsequent year through 2030.

The district will present its initial budget summary for the upcoming fiscal year, including the proposed cuts, to the Board of Education on March 26.

“We’re restructuring some to keep everybody who’s in the house in the house so that there are no position cuts or layoffs,” Watlington told reporters on Wednesday.

It’s unclear how these cuts and reassignments will affect classrooms as principals have only just begun the process of setting their school budgets for the next academic year. But Watlington said he couldn’t rule out some larger class sizes, for one.

“I don’t want to hide or obscure the fact that it will have some impact, because we’ll have to do more with less,” Watlington said. “We will not take our foot off the gas in terms of our expectations.”

Watlington said school leaders will have the discretion to decide which roles are reassigned though they can’t move roles for classroom teachers, principals, and assistant principals.

He did not provide a list of which contracts or vendors the district is looking to cut. But Watlington said he’ll take a “hard look” at reducing any program that does not show a clear throughline to improving student attendance, teacher attendance, test scores, graduation rates, and dropout rates.

In a statement, district spokesperson Monique Braxton said a full list of the vendors who may see their contracts cut or sunset “will be detailed later in the budget cycle.”

Watlington said in the long term, he expects the state to deliver on its constitutional mandate to fund its public schools adequately. A state commission calculated Philly schools need an additional $1 billion to meet student needs. But “that won’t happen in two days or overnight,” Watlington said.

Because Philadelphia is the only school district in the state that can’t raise its own revenue, it is dependent on philanthropy and state and local policymakers.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro recently proposed an increase of $151 million for the district, and Mayor Cherelle Parker this week said she wants to send $12 million more to public schools via a new tax on rideshares and a modification to tax calculations for cell towers.

But even if those increases occur, they would still not be enough to solve all the district’s budget problems, Watlington said. And last year’s state budget delay cost the district $6.5 million in interest payments.

The district is also trying to find a way to pay for its $2.8 billion proposed facilities plan that could result in 18 school closures in addition to modernizations for 160 buildings.

Philly district budget cuts would hit substitute teachers hardest

Watlington pointed to large school districts like Broward County in Florida and Los Angeles Unified School District that recently announced thousands of public school employee layoffs to plug budget holes.

“I think we’ve done our level-best to have a different story here in Philadelphia,” Watlington said.

Though no teachers will be laid off, eliminating building substitutes could mean headaches down the line for Philly’s larger schools.

Herbstman, the district CFO, said schools will continue to receive long-term substitutes for teachers out on extended leave as well as day-to-day substitutes if a teacher calls out sick. But he did not say how those roles would be coordinated or whether additional money would be needed for outside contractors to fill substitute roles.

The individuals currently acting as building substitutes may be assigned to fill other vacant positions, Herbstman said.

Watlington says Philly schools are not wasteful

Watlington emphasized that despite persistent claims of district waste and administrative bloat coming from some elected officials, “the school district of Philadelphia already has a very lean central office.” He said that position is backed up by external audits and recent credit increases.

The narrative that there is rampant waste in Philly schools is “patently, absolutely false,” he said.

Watlington said in addition to the cuts, his office is going to “be very aggressive and very assertive” about growing enrollment in the school district through recruitment — including making their case to private school families.

“This school district has so many wonderful, fantastic things that are happening,” Watlington said, citing his usual talking points about increasing test scores, rising graduation rates, and declining dropout numbers.

“We’ve got a good story to tell. We’re getting better,” he said.

Here’s a breakdown of the planned budget cuts:

Freeze central office vacancies, cut 130 vacant central office positions, and cut other central office costs ($30 million).
Reduce contracts and “low return on investment” programs ($36 million).
Implement efficiencies in the budgeting process ($103 million).
Eliminate 220 building substitute positions ($13 million).
Reassign 340 school-based positions ($43 million).

The school board is expected to adopt a final fiscal 2027 budget on May 29.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Supporters of the new federal school choice tax credit pressure Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro to opt in

2026-03-12T19:44:47+00:00

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School choice advocates and two Philadelphia lawmakers are urging Gov. Josh Shapiro to opt into a federal tax-credit scholarship program that would pay for private school tuition and other education expenses.

But Shapiro is delaying his decision until President Donald Trump’s administration releases rules laying out how much control and accountability states will have over the federal program.

The strategy from Shapiro and other Democratic governors to put off making a yes-or-no decision on the tax credits reflects the barrage of political pressures they are facing.

Supporters of the tax credit say that governors who spurn the program are simply losing out on funding that will go to other states, instead of helping their students. But embracing a measure backed by the Trump administration that promotes private school choice might clash with the ideological preferences of Democratic officials and many of their voters.

Pennsylvania already authorizes two tax-credit scholarship programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

But the federal program doesn’t rely on state funding. The new federal tax credit, which passed last summer as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, would reimburse taxpayers for donations of up to $1,700 annually to scholarship-granting organizations.

The program allows donations to pay for more than just private school tuition. Proponents say those scholarship funds could be put toward tutoring, after-school programs, education technology and other educational expenses for both private and public school students.

But there are still many questions unanswered.

The U.S. Treasury Department is developing rules outlining how much authority states will have over the program. Those rules could spell out how public school students could benefit alongside private school students, or whether states could require that scholarship granting organizations serve only low-income families or prohibit them from discriminating against LGBTQ students and teachers.

The rules could also outline how the federal program may or may not stack with existing state tax-credit scholarships.

A spokesperson for Shapiro said in a statement Thursday his office is “awaiting federal guidance to address key questions about how this program would work, including which students will be eligible, how this federal initiative will interact with existing programs.”

Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican supporters of the tax credit made their case at a press conference Thursday.

“If Pennsylvania does not opt in, residents here can still claim the [tax] credit, but their donations will go to scholarships in other states,” state Rep. Martina White, a Republican who represents parts of Philadelphia, said at a press conference on Thursday. “In other words, Pennsylvania taxpayers will help fund scholarships elsewhere while our students miss out.”

Democratic state Sen. Anthony Williams, who represents Philadelphia, was not in attendance on Thursday, but sent a statement in support of the federal program.

“If Pennsylvania chooses to opt out, then we can say with certainty that the first $1,700 of every single Pennsylvania taxpayer’s federal taxes will leave the state, and it’s going to go to the U.S. Treasury, to the IRS,” Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, said at the press conference. “Who knows what’s going to happen with the money when it gets there?”

But Susan Spicka, executive director of the public education advocacy group Education Voters PA, told Chalkbeat it is “wildly irresponsible for anyone to call for Pennsylvania to opt into the federal voucher program before Treasury issues rules delineating how the program will work.”

Spicka said without those rules, it’s unclear how much it will cost taxpayers for the state to implement and oversee the program.

Without clear accountability measures, Spicka worried the program could open the door “for extraordinary opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker proposes new tax on Ubers to help fund schools

2026-03-12T18:26:59+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker wants to introduce a new Philadelphia tax on rideshares like Uber and Lyft to boost public school funding as part of her nearly $7 billion budget proposal.

In her budget address Thursday, Parker said the new rideshare fees and other tax changes would result in $12 million more for the School District of Philadelphia next fiscal year. That would be on top of the city’s 2024 increase to the percentage of property taxes that goes towards the district. Parker has promised a further increase in 2030.

But the new funding does little to plug the district’s $300 million budget deficit. And even with the relatively small boost, the district still doesn’t have a way to pay for the $2.8 billion price tag of its proposed facilities plan, which includes closing 18 schools and modernizing more than 150 others.

“We are all aware that the school district is facing a financial crisis,” Parker said Thursday. She said she is committed to ensuring Philadelphia schools are adequately funded, but wants the state to contribute more.

The state has increased funding to Philly’s schools in recent years, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro recently proposed an increase of $151 million. But that would still leave the district with more than $1 billion less than what a state commission has determined it would need to adequately educate its students.

“It’s the state’s constitutional responsibility to deliver a thorough and efficient public education,” Parker said. But she added that the city will continue to raise local revenue to support schools.

Her remarks underscore the district’s difficult predicament as it makes the case for more funding. Philadelphia is the only district in the state that does not have the authority to raise its own revenue through taxes. Instead, it relies on support from local and state officials.

Parker and some members of City Council have said they believe the district’s funding challenge is largely up to the state to solve. But the Republican majority in the state Senate has previously opposed boosting the city’s education funds.

Parker’s budget proposal kicks off a months-long negotiation process with the City Council, which will hold several hearings about the budget. A hearing specifically about school district funding is scheduled for April 22.

The city’s deadline to pass a budget is June 30. The district is expected to release its own budget summary for the upcoming fiscal year later this month.

Rideshare tax for schools would start in 2027

Parker’s proposed additional funding for the school district would come from two changes to tax laws.

A $0.20 tax per rideshare ride, like Ubers and Lyfts, would bring in $9.6 million annually, city officials estimate. That would begin in July 2027.

A modification to tax calculations for cell towers would bring in an additional $2.4 million annually.

Along with the boost to district funding, Parker’s budget proposal includes $6.5 million more for the city’s free pre-K program, known as PHLpreK. That would expand the program by 100 seats to 5,350.

The budget would also expand Parker’s signature “extended-day, extended-year” program, which provides programming to students during the summer and after school, to two additional charter schools. The mayor’s proposed expansion would increase the number of participating schools from 40 to 47 schools. Parker did not say which new schools would get the program.

The proposal would also allocate $250,000 annually for high school students to earn credits at the Community College of Philadelphia through a dual-enrollment program.

This year’s budget comes amid rising fiscal challenges, Parker said. Though the city is projecting to have a larger “rainy day” fund than ever before, its costs are projected to climb while inflation and slow job growth are expected to add strain. Federal relief funding from the pandemic has also run out.

That’s part of why Parker said the focus of this year’s budget is increasing economic mobility — something that education is essential for, she said.

“All our work in the field of education is the foundation to ensure we increase economic mobility,” Parker said. “Every day, we have to be focused on increasing pathways for our children.”

Philly to defend a $2.8 billion plan to close schools amidst student walkouts and lawmakers’ protests

2026-02-26T17:31:54+00:00

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Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington is preparing to defend the district’s school closure and modernization plan at a marathon board meeting Thursday. He’s got his work cut out for him.

The plan would close several schools starting in 2027. Some buildings would be handed to the city, others sold, and many repurposed as district swing space or administrative offices. Officials say the Board of Education won’t vote on the plan Thursday.

Late Wednesday, the district quietly released plans to upgrade some 200 buildings. However, those changes come with a big caveat: Academy at Palumbo, for example, may get new bathrooms “if the district is granted additional government and/or philanthropic funding.” In other words, that funding is far from guaranteed.

Meanwhile, reactions to Philadelphia’s school closure plan underscore the political and policy tightrope district officials are now tiptoeing. The district’s closure plan has been shouted down by community members, teachers, elected officials, public school activists, and union representatives since its introduction. City Council members told district representatives earlier this month that though they don’t get a vote on the plan, they’ll make their feelings known through the budget process.

At community meetings across the city, district officials have been on the receiving end of blistering tirades and passionate pleas from Philadelphians who say the proposed closures and mergers will decimate communities, spur gentrification, crater student achievement, and wipe away any iota of trust and goodwill the district has gathered.

District officials have maintained the plan would be good for Philly. They say it’s necessary to shift students from half-empty, aging buildings into schools more equipped to give them the academic opportunities and staffing support they need. They say there will be a transition year during which district staff will support schools through the challenges of merging and relocating.

Ultimately, students will benefit from these changes, Watlington has said.

The students of Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice, one of the schools targeted for closure, don’t feel the same. They walked out of their classrooms on Wednesday singing “we shall not be moved” and carrying signs that highlight their high graduation rate and their commitment to public service.

State representatives have shown up to community gatherings and protests to voice their support for the schools in their neighborhoods.

“I’m concerned. I’m annoyed because it’s too fast,” State Rep. Darisha Parker said at a recent community meeting at Fitler Academics Plus in Germantown. She told district representatives “if you’re going to disrupt, uproot, and destroy our community then we need to tell you what we ain’t going to do for y’all.”

Philadelphia ninth grader Dane McFarland spoke passionately about how much Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice has meant to him and his friends.

Parker said the district was being “unfair” and should have convened meetings with local and state representatives to walk them through the plan and give the community time to raise funds before putting closure on the table.

Watlington has said the plan will cost $2.8 billion, using $1 billion in district funds and $1.8 billion in new public and philanthropic dollars.

But getting the political support for that funding will be an uphill battle.

“I know we at war,” Parker said. “They never convened a meeting with the Representatives who’ve gotta pay for these bills.” People at the district “just come up with a number and say, ‘find the money and make it work,’” Parker said.

State Rep. Morgan Cephas said on Instagram that in her nine years as a state representative, “a school has never closed in my district and it will not start now!” She rallied to protect Overbrook Elementary School, another school the district plans to close. At a packed community meeting at Overbrook recently, students sobbed into microphones begging district staff not to close their building.

School staff and the unions that represent them also aren’t sold on the plan.

Ahead of tonight’s board meeting, the five unions representing district employees are planning to hold a “save our schools” rally to protest the closures and are demanding to see the data underlying the district’s decisionmaking.

“Our schools need fixing and funding — not closure,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Chief of Staff LeShawna Coleman told the City Council earlier this month. The union conducted its own review of the plan and said they are “gravely concerned” that the plan will “provoke distrust and anxiety among beloved, established educators in schools designated for closure.”

But the community opposition to the plan has also revealed something more fundamental about Philadelphia neighborhoods: Residents want the chance to turn things around.

Ala Stanford, a congressional candidate who graduated from Fitler, said at a recent community meeting that if the district was serious about investing in schools, district officials could start by having more of a presence in the communities they serve.

“Come show up so we can show you who we are and what we’re doing,” Stanford said. “Maybe there could be a philanthropic effort where we can donate. The state can give some, y’all can give some. The community gives what they can.”

Parker and others who spoke at Fitler said they want to host a fish fry, raise money, “and do what we can” to keep their school open.

This story has been updated to reflect new information about planned upgrades to some 200 schools.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

What Pennsylvania’s budget deal means for education

2025-11-12T20:52:34+00:00

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Pennsylvania’s new $50.1 billion state budget — four months overdue — includes a $193 million increase for Philadelphia schools, and several accountability reforms for cyber charter schools and districts’ literacy programs.

The budget and accompanying school code bills reduce the amount that school districts pay cyber charters, while also adding stricter reporting requirements for those schools regarding student absenteeism and academic performance. School districts statewide will also have to adopt “evidence-based” reading curriculum by the 2027-28 school year and do more to support struggling readers.

The budget package also includes $25 million for child care teacher recruitment and retention bonuses; a $7.5 million increase for Grow PA, which gives scholarships to aspiring educators; $30 million for student-teacher stipends; a non-punitive push for students to complete their college financial aid forms prior to graduation; and a $50 cap on teacher certification fees.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the budget package Wednesday afternoon, flanked by Rep. Jordan Harris and House Speaker Joanna McClinton, both Democrats who represent Philadelphia.

“This budget builds on the progress we’ve made to be able to deliver better schools and more opportunity for our kids,” Shapiro said.

In an increasingly polarized and combative political environment, Pennsylvania officials cast their budget agreement Wednesday as a moment of unity for a divided legislature. It also gives badly needed financial relief to the state’s school districts, which resorted to various unappealing tactics like short-term borrowing to keep things running while they waited for state education funding — a situation that one observer likened to setting money on fire.

“We are voting on a budget today that continues to make historic investments in education,” said Harris, the House appropriations committee chair, before the vote in Harrisburg Wednesday. “It’s taken us a long time to get here, but the truth of the matter is we’re here and we’re here together.”

Education spending had been a central sticking point in budget negotiations. But in the shadow of a federal government shutdown and decisive election wins by Democrats this month in many races, Pennsylvania lawmakers said this budget will send a clear political message: We’re capable of compromising.

“I don’t agree with everything in this budget — that’s part of a divided government,” said Republican Rep. Jesse Topper on the House floor Wednesday. But he said he thinks the “robust” increases in education spending with the added requirements that districts adopt “evidence-based” literacy programs “will make a difference” for Pennsylvania students.

While the budget deal does not create a new private school voucher program that Republicans sought, Topper praised the $50 million increase in funding the budget allocates for the state’s existing school choice program that relies on tax credits.

In the absence of a state budget, the Philadelphia district borrowed $585.5 million to allow it to continue to function and will need to pay that money back, in addition to finding funding for the interest payments. A bill pending in the legislature would require the state to pay districts back for “interest payments and fees” stemming from lawmakers’ inability to pass a budget on time.

However, the Teach Plus advocacy group expressed concern that districts will not ultimately get reimbursed for interest they paid on any such borrowing. “That money will never reach classrooms and students, and local taxpayers will shoulder this unnecessary expense,” Teach Plus said in a Wednesday statement.

Philly district officials are also undergoing a complex facilities planning process that will result in school closures and require millions for renovations and building maintenance. The new budget includes $125 million for school facilities funding.

Budget addresses Pennsylvania’s school funding ‘adequacy gap’

This marks the second state budget since a state court ruled in 2023 that Pennsylvania’s previous school funding formula was unconstitutional because it left poor districts underfunded.

Following that ruling, a bipartisan commission crafted a new funding formula to consider districts’ tax bases and students’ needs to distribute funds. The new budget largely follows that formula and boosts funding for the state’s poorest districts.

“This budget responds to the mandates of our constitutional court to address the issues of inadequacy and equity,” said Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents Philadelphia, on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Still, advocates say the additional funding does not fully address Pennsylvania schools’ needs.

“Lawmakers’ five-month delay in passing this year’s budget left schools, educators, and families in unnecessary limbo and resulted in avoidable harm,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center-PA, in a statement. “This is another step forward – one that must be followed by continued commitment and sustained investment until every student, in every community, has the resources they need to learn and thrive.”

Cyber charter reforms will save Philadelphia district millions

Pennsylvania school districts previously have paid cyber charter schools the same amount per student as they provided to brick-and-mortar charters. But the new budget changes that, lowering the amount of money districts owe charters per student. Those changes are estimated to save the Philadelphia school district nearly $50 million this school year, according to an analysis from the House Appropriations Committee.

This year’s reforms replace last year’s $100 million payment to reimburse school districts for the cost of tuition paid to cyber charter schools.

Cyber charter schools will also be required to create policies that monitor whether students are present during synchronous parts of instruction. To be marked present, students “must be visible to the teacher on camera,” the budget bill states. For asynchronous instruction, when teachers are not live on camera, cyber charters will be required to monitor how students are progressing on certain “benchmarks” and report that information to the state.

In addition, cyber charters will have to create wellness check policies to “ensure the well-being” of enrolled students. These changes come after the death of a student enrolled in a cyber charter following her alleged torture and starvation by her guardians.

The budget legislation also prohibits students who are habitually truant from transferring during the school year to a cyber charter school, unless a judge determines that the transfer is in the child’s best interest.

Cyber charter operators said in a joint statement Wednesday the reforms would amount to a significant budget cut and could force up to seven cyber charter schools to close within two years. And they estimate the budget deal would lead to layoffs of 2,000 cyber charter teachers and staff.

Jon Marsh, CEO of Esperanza Cyber Charter School based in North Philly, said in a Wednesday statement that the budget represented “an attack on some of the most chronically disenfranchised and disadvantaged students in our Commonwealth.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

‘We have set money on fire’: Pennsylvania budget impasse costs Philadelphia school district millions

2025-11-11T19:02:24+00:00

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Pennsylvania lawmakers say a state budget could be near — potentially with more funding for districts like Philadelphia’s.

But the budget is already over four months late. And that’s caused significant financial harm to districts across the state.

In Philadelphia, the state’s largest district, the school board authorized the district to borrow $1.55 billion in September to make up for missed state payments that would have come through if lawmakers had adopted a budget by the July 1 deadline.

If the district ends up drawing down the entire loan, interest payments will cost the cash-strapped district around $30 million, according to district officials. That’s equivalent to roughly 200 teacher salaries in a district with ongoing teacher shortages.

Some smaller districts are delaying payments to charter schools and pausing after school programming. Others have said they will have to shut down if there is no budget deal soon.

At a Philadelphia Board of Education hearing last week, Board President Reginald Streater said the district had to continue to borrow funds to “keep the lights on and continue making the payments we have to make under the law.”

So far, it has drawn down $585.5 million of the loan to make up for the missing state funding, according to district spokesperson Naima DeBrest. The loan agreement requires the district to pay that money back within the same fiscal year.

The strain on districts’ budgets comes as lawmakers argue over what the future of education funding should look like in the state. How the state divides money between districts is one of the key issues in this year’s budget negotiations, following a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s school funding formula to be unconstitutional because it left poor districts underfunded.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, backed by Democratic lawmakers, would include $200 million more for Philadelphia schools as part of a boost to school funding for districts with lower tax bases and higher costs per student.

But some Senate Republicans, who are in the majority, have opposed that proposal. Republican Majority Leader Sen. Joe Pittman has previously indicated that he opposes the funding formula Shapiro is using to determine how much money districts get. (Pittman’s office declined to respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.)

Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents part of Philadelphia, said he and other Democratic senators are “holding firm” on supporting Shapiro’s education funding proposal.

“It has been a lot of lifting to make sure that we protect that,” said Hughes. “And it’s not done, so we’ve got to keep fighting for it.”

Lawmakers say Pennsylvania budget deal could be close

Hughes said he could not estimate when a budget deal may be finalized, but that there had been “an increased level” of negotiations over the last several weeks. He said he hoped that recent election results, in which Democrats made gains in several states, “would have sent a message to our Republican colleagues that their way of governing … the people don’t like it.”

Sen. Lynda Culver, a Republican who chairs the Senate education committee, said she is not part of the negotiation team, but she is hopeful a budget deal could be reached this week. The House plans to return to a voting session on Wednesday, and Culver said the Senate also expected to return to session later this week, though no date has been publicized.

Culver said she wants Shapiro’s education spending proposal to be “tweaked” so that rural districts get more funding.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing,” said Culver of Shapiro’s budget blueprint. “I’m just saying it needs consideration for rural Pennsylvania.” She added that education spending is one of many issues she would consider in any budget proposal.

It’s encouraging that lawmakers have fought for more education funding for poor districts, said Dan Urevick-Ackelsber, a senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, a legal advocacy group. Still, he said, Shapiro’s proposal still does not adequately fund higher-needs districts.

“Our schools need every dollar that we give them,” said Urevick-Ackelsber, who was involved in the legal case challenging the state’s funding formula that culminated in the 2023 court ruling. “And we have set money on fire.”

Philadelphia district officials have urged lawmakers to pass a budget that follows the governor’s proposal.

Without adequate funding, students ultimately suffer, Streater said at the recent Philadelphia board hearing.

“We have been put into a situation where … our children have yet to get the fundamental rights that they have been granted under our state constitution.”

How bad are Pennsylvania’s school building problems? State officials say they don’t know.

2025-09-22T19:52:29+00:00

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As Philadelphia school officials move closer to closing schools in part to address urgent facilities needs, not even state officials know the depth of the state’s school building problem.

Now, several state Democratic lawmakers are pushing to pass a bill that would require the state to create an inventory of school facilities data to document building conditions.

“We need to identify the problem,” said Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler at a hearing about the proposed legislation Monday in South Philadelphia. “The current state of school facilities presents both a crisis of education and a public health crisis.”

Though individual districts, including Philadelphia, have gathered some data about their schools’ facilities needs, statewide information about which schools are in greatest need of repairs because of broken infrastructure, environmental hazards, and outdated technology remains severely lacking.

Jessica Sites, director of the bureau of financial operations at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said it’s obvious to the department that there are severe building problems in districts across Pennsylvania.

During several hearings over the state’s school funding formula, which a judge ruled in 2023 was unconstitutional, Pennsylvanians raised grave concerns about schools with mold, asbestos, and crumbling walls. Concerns about asbestos exposure have closed several Philly schools in recent years, and the district’s approach to the issue recently drew the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice.

But the state does not have information on each school’s square footage, let alone comprehensive information on the costs of maintenance or repairs.

“We can’t quantify it well enough — I think that’s the problem,” said Sites. “What we are being is reactive to some of these issues. We are not being proactive.”

Small and inexpensive building issues, like a small leak, can transform into a severe and expensive problem without proactive maintenance, said Jerry Roseman, director of environmental science at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

He urged officials at Monday’s hearing to support districts in collecting better building data so they can make small repairs before they become costly, full-building issues.

The legislation would require school districts to submit detailed information about their facilities to the department every three years, including building square footage, age, and brief descriptions of any major renovations. It would also require districts to provide plans on how they would modernize school buildings.

The legislation states the department would provide technical assistance to districts to repair infrastructure when funding is available. It would also support schools in securing additional federal, state, and local funding for repairs.

LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the union supports the legislation as long as it’s accompanied by state funding.

“Without a dedicated and recurring appropriation in the state budget, this initiative will result in an unfunded mandate,” said Coleman.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that impact students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Philly schools will borrow up to $1.5 billion to pay for a new teacher contract and other costs

2025-09-11T22:20:01+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education approved the new teachers’ union contract on Thursday. But with the state budget still not finalized, members also voted to authorize borrowing to pay for it and other costs.

The new three-year contract includes annual 3% raises over three years and a one-time $1,400 bonus for all Philadelphia Federation of Teachers members. It also provides teachers with paid parental leave for the first time in district history, according to union officials, as well as an end to the controversial sick leave policy known as 3-5-7-9.

Board members voted unanimously to approve the contract. But they also warned the state budget impasse will cost Philadelphia students resources and opportunities.

“It’s a disgrace,” board member Joyce Wilkerson said of the budget standstill. “We need the funding, we need it now, we shouldn’t need to borrow.”

Board Member Whitney Jones said because of the stalemate “and the uncertainty it creates the district is being forced to borrow” more than three times what the board was expecting to borrow. The associated interest payments could soar to $30 million, board members said.

Accordingly, board members also voted 8-0 with one abstention on Thursday to approve the issuance and sale of notes totaling up to $1.55 billion. This money would be short-term borrowing and would need to be borrowed and repaid within the same fiscal year.

“The budget delays are costing our schools money that we do not have and it’s further limiting what we can provide to students,” Jones said.

The contract negotiated between the PFT and the district assumes an increase in school funding proposed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro back in February. More than two months after the state deadline for lawmakers to pass a budget, they remain deadlocked. More than $1 billion in payments for K-12 schools across the state have already been delayed, according to the state department of education.

Philly schools are still awaiting $374 million according to the district’s Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman.

Without annual funding increases from the state, the district will likely need to borrow to be able to pay for the contract across all three years, in addition to its other financial obligations like payments to charter schools. The district is already staring down a growing budget deficit.

Herbstman told board members 53% of the district’s budget comes from state funding, and therefore “it’s not sustainable long term to continue to operate as normal without them.” The Philly school district is almost entirely reliant on state, city, and federal funding, as it is the only district in the state that can’t raise its own revenue.

Board Member Wanda Novales said “every week of the delay puts more pressure on our budget, and every dollar spent on interest is a dollar not spent on our kids.”

The $30 million that would go to paying interest on that borrowing would be equivalent to a little over 200 teacher salaries, Herbstman said.

Pennsylvania and Michigan are the only states that haven’t passed a budget this year. And school funding is a major area of disagreement in both states.

In Pennsylvania, where budget negotiations largely take place behind closed doors, Republican legislative leaders have proposed holding public education spending flat while floating increases in state dollars for private school vouchers and tax-credit scholarships. Democrats have rejected those ideas and education advocates have argued such proposals fly in the face of a court ruling that deemed Pennsylvania’s prior school funding system unconstitutional.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia teachers union prepares for strike as contract negotiations continue

2025-07-31T17:17:37+00:00

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Philadelphia teachers union leaders are preparing members for a strike as contract negotiations with the school district continue in the lead-up to the first day of school.

Negotiations are “moving more slowly than I would like,” Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, told Chalkbeat this week. But he said despite the union and district making “some progress” toward an agreement, they have not reconciled some of the most pressing issues. Among them: salary increases for teachers and school staff, reforming the district’s controversial sick leave policy that union members say penalizes teachers for using sick days, and adding 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Union members currently get no paid parental leave.

Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, said in an email Thursday that she would not comment on the details of the negotiation process but that district officials “look forward to working with the PFT on a proposal that honors the hard work of our staff each day.”

Philly school officials have said the district is staring down a growing annual budget deficit, and it remains the only school district in the state that can’t raise its own tax revenue.

Steinberg said he still thinks there’s room for compromise. The district’s “initial set of proposals weren’t as irksome as they usually are,” he said but declined to give more details. “There were some [proposals] that we don’t think we can agree to, but nothing that set a bad tone, as it has in the past.”

A majority of the union’s 14,000 members voted to authorize a strike in June. A work stoppage could disrupt the first weeks and months of school. The first day of school for students is on August 25 and teachers are scheduled to head back to classrooms on August 18.

Though Steinberg said “we’re not ready to walk out tomorrow,” if negotiations stall in the next few weeks, “we could hit the bricks the next day,” he warned. The union’s contract expires on Aug. 31.

Steinberg declined to comment on how likely a teacher strike would be for the start of the school year, but he did say the union has begun reaching out to members who struck with the PFT during its 1981 and 2000 walkouts to give the newer members a “feel for what it was like and what to expect.”

As the summer stretches on, Philadelphia is inching closer to what could be a calamitous start to the school year. In addition to the threat of a teacher strike, the city’s public transit system is preparing to cut SEPTA bus and rail lines that serve more than 50,000 students and extreme heat conditions could likely result in school closures during the first week back.

What’s more, a state budget impasse has officials warning of delayed payments to prekindergarten programs and school districts posing additional complications for Philly schools’ budget. And ongoing uncertainty from the Trump administration has school leaders wary about relying on federal funds.

Labor leaders, including Steinberg, held a press conference Thursday urging Republicans who control the state Senate to send a budget bill to Gov. Josh Shapiro promptly.

Autumn Fingerhood, a district parent and stadium worker with the Unite Here Local 274 labor union, said her daughter relies on SEPTA to get to school, and she’s concerned service cuts could make their morning commute a challenge.

“They need to pass this budget,” she said. “My children need to be taken care of.”

Union contact negotiations throughout the city have also taken on a new tenor following the eight-day sanitation worker strike this month. That strike resulted in a contract agreement that fell short of what the union wanted but shored up the public’s general support for labor, Steinberg said.

“The school district likes to claim that they are the fastest growing large urban school district in the country,” Steinberg said. “A strike will derail that and really eliminate any progress that they have made.”

And as for Mayor Cherelle Parker’s promised teacher salary increases in 2030, “I’ll be long gone by then,” Steinberg said. “My members need money now.”

This story has been updated to include comment from a spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: What Philadelphia can learn from Washington, D.C., about fixing crumbling schools

2025-07-18T19:22:58+00:00

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The School District of Philadelphia’s facilities planning process aims to “rightsize” school buildings across the city by renovating some, co-locating or repurposing others, and likely closing some schools.

District officials have promised they’ve learned their lesson from the previous closures in 2013 that had detrimental effects on student academics and cratered community trust in school officials. This time, they said, they want community members to better understand the district’s challenges and involve the public’s input in the decisionmaking.

The district’s decades-long neglect of its facilities coupled with years of unconstitutional underfunding at the state level has had significant costs. The current price tag to make all needed repairs and upgrades to Philly school has ballooned to $8 billion. Of that total, some $4.5 billion is needed for deferred maintenance. Teachers and students say they have been sickened by asbestos and lead. And a number of schools have closed after the discovery of damaged asbestos.

Last month, the Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the district for its multi-years failure to conduct timely asbestos inspections.

Still, some community members have criticized the district’s ongoing facilities engagement process as opaque, perfunctory, and overly controlled. District officials are conducting more community engagement sessions and intend to present their plan to the public this fall.

Given the increased attention on school facilities, Chalkbeat’s partners at Swarthmore College spoke with Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund and a parent activist who was instrumental in the facilities planning process in Washington, D.C. Since the 1990s, District of Columbia Public Schools has invested over $6 billion to modernize 70% of its public schools. In many respects, Washington, D.C., has accomplished what Philadelphia experts say they hope to achieve.

Washington has also grappled with many of the same challenges Philly has: stagnating student enrollment, a previous closure process that traumatized communities, and difficulty obtaining state or federal funding.

Filardo said Washington has lessons to offer about organizing across the city, securing money to modernize and maintain buildings, and how to build a robust community engagement process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Roseann Liu and Abby Hong: Given the financial constraints of a lot of urban school districts, what do you think would make the biggest impact in remediating toxins in school buildings?

Mary Filardo: Philadelphia is one of the great cities of the United States. It can manage big problems, but it can’t accidentally fix toxic schools. You actually have to purposefully fix toxic schools. You can’t accidentally make things equitable and high quality. You have to purposely do it.

And so that means you have to put on the table what actually is the problem, not what you politically wish the problem was.

Liu and Hong: Reflecting on your experience with the D.C. Public Schools, what do you think are the top ingredients for a robust community engagement process?

Filardo: You have to do whatever processes are going to be required for your particular neighborhood or community to build trust. You have to have to be open, you have to share data, you have to share information, you have to share it in a timely way. And you have to be willing to not know. The system itself has to say, “I don’t have the answers. I want your input in the answers.”

You also have to share your technical people. You can’t hoard the technical people. They have to be used by the community and the administration.

You have to have a dialogue, you have to actually talk to each other and wrestle together. It isn’t just like, I’m going to get input from you, and then I’m going to put it together. The community actually has to be in dialogue with you and with the support of technical folks.

Liu and Hong: If you were in a room with the Philadelphia school district how would you advise them?

Filardo: I remember in Washington, D.C., we had a lead in the water tested, and it tested really high, so they just turned off all the water and they didn’t want anybody to know. I said to the head of facilities, “The public should know that we’ve got lead pipes, lead service, lead everything, and this is a problem. Why are you trying to hide this? You should be using this to make the case.” They didn’t know how to make it public, because of course, one of the main things schools are responsible for is healthy, safe environments for kids.

And you’ve got to engage your people, whether they’re custodians or building engineers or principals or teachers, or whatever, and kind of put it out there. How can we get this done? What can we do to help? It’s very tricky. But it doesn’t go away when you ignore it.

And so that to me, that’s the first thing. You’ve got to sit down, you’ve got to do plans, and you’ve got to try to prioritize, and you have to get the dollars.

Liu and Hong: One of the ongoing challenges of urban school districts is underfunding. How did the D.C. public schools get the money it needed to fix school buildings?

Filardo: You don’t get money unless you have a vision and a plan. You have to do the planning work. It’s not like the building industry or the real estate sector doesn’t understand what it costs to do the work that you’re describing that needs to be done.

So that’s partly where we got our real estate and our building industry saying, “Yes, this is what needs to be done. Yes, you should be doing it.” And realizing, of course, that they were going to benefit from it.

Liu and Hong: What do you think are the biggest lessons that Philly can learn from D.C., both as a cautionary tale, but also maybe some things that we can imitate?

Filardo: I think that a parallel push that we spent some time on, but not nearly enough on is this planning on the day-to-day operations and maintenance. That, too, really requires that the stakeholders engaged, communities looking at it, technical people, trying to figure out, okay, how do we manage this? It’s a little bit like being in an emergency room.

We actually put a lot in our City Council legislation. I think you’re not going to get it unless there’s some requirements for planning, requirements for hearings, requirements for some kind of engagement. Now it doesn’t mean that it gets done well, but it’s a tool.

Liu and Hong: Can you provide a big-picture timeline of the efforts to improve DCPS buildings?

Filardo: [School district] enrollment had been declining and there had been a huge amount of white flight from desegregation. In the early ’90s, they said, “We have to close schools because we can’t afford to fix them.” So they set out to close 10 schools. They put 40 schools on the list and told the community that you had to pick the 10. Well, [there was] a huge outcry.

We essentially looked at the vision from an educational perspective, from an environmental perspective, from a financial perspective, and we worked with the task force. We had utilization data.

The District [Congressional] Committee was a very prominent, powerful thing at that time. They put in the budget bill that there had to be an update of this plan. It became an accepted part of what was going to be happening in the city. From a financial perspective and a management perspective, it was messy, people were still trying to figure out, well, how do we get the work done? And where exactly is the money coming from?

[Eventually the mayor at the time] got how powerful it is from a political perspective to do infrastructure work. People care about the schools in their neighborhoods. So he helped push that and also helped identify a more stable funding source, which was the real estate transfer tax for commercial real estate. We didn’t have any federal money. This was all local money that was going into our renovations and modernizations and all of the repair emergencies.

Trump administration withholds $230 million from Pennsylvania schools

2025-07-03T19:48:07+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Pennsylvania education leaders are scrambling after the Trump administration said it would withhold more than $230 million in congressionally approved funding for after-school programs, teacher training, literacy, and education for migrant and non-English speaking students.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Education said the U.S. Department of Education informed officials Monday evening of a delay in the release of funding that was due to be available starting Tuesday.

The action is separate from the budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress.

Education advocates told the Capital-Star on Wednesday the failure to release the funds was reckless and unlawful and would affect the commonwealth’s most vulnerable students.

“These federal funds support key programs that expand learning for our most underserved students,” Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

State House Education Committee Chairperson Peter Schweyer, a Democrat, said the announcement caught state and local school officials off guard, which came days after the deadline for school districts to approve their budgets.

The uncertainty also arrived as the General Assembly continues negotiations over the state budget.

According to an analysis by Education Week, the $230 million due Pennsylvania is the sixth largest amount among the states after California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois.

Schweyer said he learned of the funding freeze from a school superintendent in his legislative district who had received a “terse” email from the state. He learned further details about the Trump administration’s decision from a New York Times article.

“To say we had no idea this is coming is absolutely accurate,” Schweyer said.

The federal Education Department referred questions to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond.

He said the funding freeze comes as many school districts and partner organizations are working to finalize agreements and hire staff for after school and summer programs. Rural communities where independent nonprofit organizations such as the YMCA and Jewish community centers are less common are likely to be hit harder, he said.

“The Trump administration is beyond reckless. This Congress is beyond impotent. They’re hurting the families we all collectively serve,” Schweyer said.

Funding for seven federal programs totaling nearly $7 billion nationwide is affected. Five of the programs support K-12 schools, while the other two help schools, community colleges and other organizations provide adult literacy and civics education.

McInerney said the programs benefit children affected by poverty through summer school and after-school tutoring and enrichment programs; immigrant students and English learners; children of migrant workers; youth in the foster care system and juvenile justice system; and adults seeking basic education as a pathway to postsecondary education and employment.

The state Education Department provided estimates of the impact on commonwealth schools and other organizations that receive the funds:

Title I-C, Migrant Education, $11 million
Title II-A, Supporting Effective Instruction, $70 million
Title III-A, English Language Acquisition, $20 million
Title IV-B, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, $54 million
Adult Education Basic Grants to States, $20 million

“We are assessing the impact of this delay and will keep school leaders and local programs informed. We are also determining any next steps,” department spokesperson Erin James said. “PDE will continue to share updates as they become available and is committed to supporting Pennsylvania schools, educators, and learners throughout this process.”

McInerney said withholding the funds is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act, which regulates how the president can delay or rescind spending that has already been approved by Congress.

“The unilateral withholding of these congressionally appropriated funding streams without any justification or warning to Congress is outrageous and unlawful. The administration cannot unilaterally delay or cancel appropriations already enacted into law. Only Congress holds this constitutional power,” McInerney said.

Philadelphia school district, union leaders say students need state education funding boost

2025-06-25T21:39:35+00:00

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In an unusual show of unity, Philadelphia school officials and union leaders stood side by side at the state Capitol in Harrisburg on Wednesday to call on state lawmakers to increase funding for city schools in the upcoming state budget.

They said that more money for the district would help it continue to support students, improve graduation rates and test scores, and save the government money down the road.

State lawmakers have until June 30 to pass next year’s state budget, though some have signaled they are unlikely to meet that deadline. School funding has been an ongoing flashpoint in negotiations following a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s previous school funding formula to be unconstitutional because it left poor districts severely underfunded.

Philadelphia schools got $232 million more in last year’s budget, though it still left the district with far less money per pupil than wealthier suburban districts. Democratic lawmakers argue the court ruling means the state must continue to increase funding for districts like Philadelphia that cannot or do not have resources to raise as much money through property taxes.

Some Republicans have previously resisted increasing funding for poor districts, promoting additional school choice programs like vouchers instead.

“This is no ordinary year,” said LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, referring to the 2023 court ruling as well as growing concerns that the Trump administration could cut federal funding for schools.

“We’re doing this to make sure Philly public schools get their fair share of funding,” Coleman added. “Our students deserve nothing less.”

Union leaders appearing alongside district officials to lobby lawmakers together is “unprecedented,” PFT President Arthur Steinberg said Wednesday.

Their trip to Harrisburg comes days after a majority of union members voted to authorize a strike amid ongoing contract negotiations. Teacher salaries and benefits make up the largest portion of the district’s budget, so any additional state funding would likely go in part to employee salaries.

Both union leaders and district officials said they supported Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, which would increase funding for Philadelphia schools by more than $200 million.

Shapiro’s proposal includes additional funding for building repairs, school meals, student mental health support, and special education. It would also limit how cyber charter schools are funded in a way that would save the district another $50 million.

Board President Reginald Streater said increased funding would help the district maintain some of its academic gains and continue to better serve students. Last school year, the district’s attendance increased slightly, its dropout rate declined, and some student test scores increased.

“Without a continued investment, we risk stalling or even reversing the momentum we have all worked so hard to build,” said Streater.

Lawmakers battle over funding for Philadelphia schools

After the 2023 court ruling that found the state inequitably funded school districts, enabling those with large tax bases to thrive while others in poorer areas struggled, lawmakers negotiated how to close the gap.

A commission convened by lawmakers in 2023 to examine the issue ultimately defined a concept called an “adequacy target.” It measures how much money districts need to serve their students, with considerations that poor students, English language learners, and students with disabilities may need more resources.

But last year’s state budget left the Philadelphia school district with a $4.5 billion “adequacy gap”.

Several Democratic lawmakers joined the rally Wednesday, voicing their commitment to eliminating that disparity. Democratic Sen. Vincent Hughes, who represents part of Philadelphia, said the 2023 court ruling essentially requires as much.

“If the judge says, ‘You gotta do something,’ you gotta do it,” said Hughes. “What we’re saying is fund the schools.”

However, some Republican lawmakers have previously disagreed with that interpretation of the court ruling. In March, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, noted the court did not specifically require the state to increase funding to certain districts and questioned the fairness of the state’s adequacy funding formula.

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington said his plan is to steward the district’s funding to ensure students graduate prepared and do not have to rely on other costly government programs, like social services, down the line.

“We are committed to ensuring that we come back and report to you, year over year, the return on investment for every dollar you send to the school district of Philadelphia,” said Watlington.

Lawmakers eye changes to cyber charter funding

Union representatives and school officials also rallied for lawmakers to save the Philadelphia district money through legislation that would cap the amount districts pay cyber charter schools.

The bill, which could save school districts across the state more than $600 million annually, passed the state House earlier this month. It now awaits consideration in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, who have largely been more supportive of alternatives to traditional public schools, like cyber charters.

“We have invested in cyber charter schools and gotten nothing in return,” said Rep. Mary Isaacson, a Philadelphia Democrat and the bill’s main sponsor in the House. “Except children that are not being educated and children that are falling behind.”

Cyber charter schools are currently funded with the same formula as brick-and-mortar charters. As more cyber charters have opened in Pennsylvania in recent years, some lawmakers and advocates worry that they receive surplus funding as they do not have the same building maintenance needs as traditional schools.

Cyber charter schools have performed worse than the state average, with lower graduation rates and lower test scores in some subjects.

Isaacson’s bill would also introduce additional oversight for cyber charter schools and require them to pay back some of the money from the past school year that they did not spend.

Though the bill has been championed by Democrats, it has some support from Republicans.

Philadelphia teachers union votes to authorize a strike

2025-06-18T00:24:08+00:00

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Members of the Philadelphia teachers union voted to authorize a future strike Tuesday, flexing their political muscles amid contract negotiations with the school district.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said 94% percent of members in attendance at a meeting Tuesday evening voted to give leaders the power to call a strike if the union and the school district fail to reach an agreement by August when their contract expires.

The likelihood of a strike is unclear. But if PFT leaders do call a strike of their 14,000 members, it could disrupt the opening days of the new school year. The 2025-26 school year begins August 18 for staff and August 25 for students.

The union and district return to the negotiating table Wednesday. Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday that district officials are “optimistic that we will reach an agreement on a successor collective bargaining agreement.”

PFT President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement that the union already “has made progress toward an agreement that demonstrably improves members’ working conditions.” But key demands remain, specifically changes that would address the district’s staffing shortage “that has left teachers, counselors, and other school staff juggling duties beyond their own job descriptions.”

The district started the school year with 347 teacher vacancies.

Tuesday’s vote signals that the union is taking stock of its political power in the city. It’s the PFT’s first strike authorization vote since the district regained local control from the state.

When the school district was under state control from 2001 to 2018, the PFT was barred from striking and teachers went without an active contract for five years. As a result, union leadership says teacher salaries have lagged, which has contributed to teacher churn.

The average Philly classroom teacher salary in 2024-25 was $85,719, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

In February 2024, the union and district were on good terms. Both parties agreed to a one-year contract extension that included raises and retention bonuses well before the previous contract’s expiration date in August 2024.

The district may have some additional resources to offer — but not for several years. Mayor Cherelle Parker and members of City Council reached a budget agreement this month that would increase the district’s share of property tax revenue from 56% to 56.5% in 2030. Parker said that increase will provide an additional $12 million per year for teacher salaries.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

New Philadelphia budget ‘sets up our schools for major cuts’ as deficits loom, councilmember says

2025-06-12T18:48:26+00:00

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Philadelphia’s new $6.8 billion city budget does little to help what many call the city’s chronically underfunded school district close its looming deficits — and public education advocates say the city could have done more.

The final budget — which reflects a deal between Mayor Cherelle Parker and City Council leadership — passed 15-1 on Thursday. It includes some significant wage and business tax cuts as well as Parker’s signature housing initiative, but it does not deliver a meaningful funding increase to the school district.

By not adding new money for the school district, “this budget sets up our schools for major cuts in the coming years,” Councilmember Kendra Brooks said. Brooks was the lone no vote on the budget.

The final budget looks nearly identical to what Parker originally proposed for schools in March. It increases Center City parking fees, which Parker’s office says would add $4 million to district coffers. And it will increase the school district’s share of the city’s property tax revenue from 56% to 56.5% in fiscal 2030. Parker’s office estimates that shift will mean $12 million in new funding to the district, albeit all at once five years from now.

It also includes $500,000 to “fully cover the credentialing costs for current Career and Technical Education teachers” employed by the district, according to a statement from Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.

But the district is grappling with a growing annual deficit that is slated to reach $466 million in 2027 and $774 million in 2030. And while Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget would send some $160 million more to Philly schools in fiscal 2026, it’s unclear whether schools will get that increase.

The school district’s budget is $4.6 billion.

For fiscal year 2026, the district is planning to use 40% of its “rainy day” fund to cover a $306 million budget hole, which district leaders say is the result of decades of unconstitutional underfunding by the state.

Donna Cooper of the education advocacy group Children First told Chalkbeat that given the size of the city’s funding surplus, it could have easily afforded to change the district’s share of property taxes this year rather than waiting until 2030. She added that the City Council should have demanded the change take place sooner.

Last year, the city increased the district’s share from 55% to 56%, which Parker’s office said added $24 million for the city’s schools. Parker has said she would like to gradually shift the district’s share of property taxes to 58% over time.

“It makes absolutely no sense to me,” Cooper said. “I personally cannot conjure up the logic that would enable people to argue that there’s not enough money to do it this year, and certainly no reason to even say it should wait till 2030.”

Cooper said because Philly is the only school district in the state that cannot raise its own tax revenue, it’s at a political disadvantage during budget negotiations. Of the district’s budget, $2 billion comes from the city, $2.4 billion from the state, and nearly $180 million from the federal government, although President Donald Trump has proposed cutting some federal education spending.

“We really need Council to unite behind the cause of the school district, because it is the obligation for them to do it,” Cooper said.

Asked why the City Council did not significantly increase school funding this year, Council President Kenyatta Johnson cited “the uncertainty” of potential cuts coming from the Trump administration.

“As we move forward, we’ll look at the school district’s finances and how they are operating,” Johnson said. “If we have to make adjustments to make further decisions financially to support the school district we’ll evaluate that in the future.”

Early on in the budget negotiation process, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs the education committee, said he was mulling the possibility of putting that property tax shift in this fiscal 2026 budget. But the proposal did not survive the negotiation process.

While the city waits for state lawmakers “to develop a fair funding formula to equitably and properly fund our schools, we in Philly have to find more creative and immediate ways to invest in our students, teachers, and everyone who makes Philly schools excellent,” Thomas said in an email.

Brooks said “multiple Councilmembers and parents across Black and brown neighborhoods advocated” for an increase in the property tax revenue that goes to the district “in order to boost public school funding,” but were unsuccessful.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Cyber charter reform that could save public schools $616M advances with unclear future in Pa. Senate

2025-06-05T18:30:06+00:00

HARRISBURG — Public school districts in Pennsylvania could save more than $600 million annually under a bill that the state House passed Wednesday to cap the tuition they pay to cyber charters.

The bill is part of a several year effort to boost oversight and cut spending on cyber charter schools. At least some of its concepts have support in both chambers, but the issue has always been complicated by the commonwealth’s tricky education politics.

Democrats, who control the state House, have championed increased spending for poor public schools, while Republicans, who control the state Senate, favor funding alternatives including charter schools, though the issue doesn’t break neatly down party lines.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) reflected that dynamic in a statement Wednesday, saying “certain aspects” of the bill advanced by the state House “could be beneficial.” That includes the measure’s requirements that cyber schools do wellness checks on students and that public districts get proof of residency for students for whom they pay tuition.

But, Pittman added, there needs to be recognition that the proposal would save school districts money, which he believes should count as the legislature giving public schools increased support as required by a 2022 court ruling.

Democrats, meanwhile, are casting this issue as an administrative necessity.

“This bill is the result of repeated and urgent calls to update our commonwealth’s outdated charter school law,” state Rep. Mary Isaacson (D-Philadelphia), the bill sponsor, said on the House floor Wednesday. “This proposal is about fiscal responsibilities and aligning tuition to the actual cost.”

The measure made it through the lower chamber 104-98, with two moderate Republicans voting in favor. It now goes to the state Senate Education Committee. Its chair, Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver (R-Columbia), said in a statement, “We will thoroughly review the legislation as we do for all bills given to the committee.”

Pennsylvania school districts must pay tuition for any students who live within their borders and opt to attend a charter school. These tuition rates are calculated based on the district’s per-student spending using a formula that has changed little over the past several decades.

Currently, the state uses nearly the same formula to fund online-only cyber charter schools as it does for brick-and-mortar charters, despite the former’s relatively lower overhead costs.

That would change under this bill.

It would instead set a base tuition rate of $8,000 per student. That rate would be increased for students who have extra needs, such as disabilities. This mirrors a proposal that Gov. Josh Shapiro has made in his last two budgets and of which Democrats have long been supportive.

The measure would also make several other changes. A number focus on transparency, such as the wellness checks and residency requirements Pittman cited.

Other provisions include requirements that cyber charters post annual performance assessments online and inform students if they are found to be low performing, as well as an enrollment cap on cyber charters found to be low performing. Cyber charters would also be required to disclose any “entities” helping to finance their capital projects.

Along with the flat tuition rate, there are also other financial components.

By the end of this year, cyber charters would have to pay back a significant portion of their unspent surplus dollars from the 2024-25 fiscal year to the state. That money would go into a state fund for public schools facility improvement projects, and would newly make charter schools eligible for those funds.

The bill would additionally bar cyber charters from accumulating large surpluses in the future. Starting at the end of the next fiscal year — June 2026 — any surplus dollars in excess of 12% of the school’s total expenditures that aren’t earmarked would have to be sent back to public districts.

Plus, it would require that any revenue cyber charters generate via property be paid back to the school districts they receive money from.

According to the bill’s fiscal note, lower cyber charter tuition payments would save districts an aggregate of $616 million, half of what they currently spend. Each district’s specific savings would vary based on how many students they have enrolled in cyber charters.

The shaky bipartisan agreement that Pennsylvania’s cyber charter law needs to be updated didn’t come out of nowhere.

Cyber charter enrollment has risen significantly in recent years — by nearly 57% across the state since 2020, when the pandemic began pushing more families to explore the option. Nearly 60,000 Pennsylvania students now attend cyber charters, which means a growing number of school districts and lawmakers are affected.

A review earlier this year from Republican Auditor General Tim DeFoor solidified members’ opinion that something had to change.

DeFoor audited five of the commonwealth’s 14 cyber charters and found that the revenue they were taking in nearly doubled from 2020 to 2023, from $473 million to $898 million, and also that the schools’ financial reserves had increased by nearly 150% in that period. In addition, he found cyber charters had been spending funds on “unusual” things like gift cards and vehicle payments.

Still, division remains. During the floor debate Wednesday, several Republicans slammed the bill as unfair to cyber charter schools.

“We still have some more work to do for our school districts complaining about equal funding. All they ask is to be treated the same, and I’m here to advocate for them,” said state Rep. Craig Williams (R-Chester). “House Bill 1500 doesn’t do that. House Bill 1500 puts us on a path to end cyber charters.”

Cyber charter administrators and advocates are also uniformly against the measure.

Marcus Hite, who heads the Pennsylvania Association of Public Cyber Charter Schools, called the $8,000 tuition cap “arbitrary and unrealistic,” saying in a news release it “doesn’t reflect the real cost of educating students, especially those with disabilities or unique learning needs.”

“Cyber charters are already subject to some of the highest levels of oversight in the education system — audits, performance reviews, and public transparency,” he added. “HB 1500 piles on duplicative and punitive rules.”

In a joint statement, a group of administrators from five cyber charter schools said the bill would lead to closures. Jon Marsh of Philadelphia’s Esperanza Cyber Charter School called it “an attack on some of the most chronically disenfranchised and disadvantaged students in our Commonwealth.”

Public education advocates support the measure. Susan Spicka of Education Voters of PA said it “will save hundreds of millions of tax dollars annually and bring long-overdue accountability and transparency to Pennsylvania’s billion dollar cyber charter industry.”

The issue is heavily lobbied. Last year alone, Commonwealth Charter Academy, the state’s biggest cyber charter, spent $202,500 on education-related lobbying. Other cyber charters typically spend at least tens of thousands of dollars annually. That doesn’t touch the significant dollars that traditional brick-and-mortar charters and their advocates spend on lobbying.

Public schools have their own lobbying presence, too. The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the union that represents teachers, spent nearly $178,000 on lobbying last year.

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.

Pennsylvania Republicans resurrect school voucher plans as state budget talks heat up

2025-05-20T17:04:21+00:00

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As Congress considers establishing a national school choice program, Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to revive plans for a statewide school voucher program.

State Rep. Martina White, who represents parts of Philadelphia, organized a Republican policy committee hearing on Monday to examine the School District of Philadelphia’s finances, staffing, and possible “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But no school district leaders were present at Monday’s hearing to answer lawmakers’ questions.

White and at least one fellow lawmaker said they came away from the hearing with a renewed belief that private school vouchers would benefit Philadelphia families who are unhappy with the condition and performance of their city schools. White told Chalkbeat on Monday that schools in her Northeast Philly neighborhood are overcrowded, and she would like to see “basically a school voucher” be made available to those parents “to be able to use that for the child to go to the school of their choice.”

Earlier this month, the state Senate education committee approved legislation to create a new voucher program called the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success — or PASS — Scholarship.

The bill would establish state-backed scholarship funds that eligible students could use to pay for tuition and fees for attendance at participating private schools. This year’s PASS legislation is nearly identical to last year’s proposal and very similar to a program called Lifeline Scholarships from two years ago.

Republicans’ support for private school vouchers is important because, as lawmakers decide on the state budget and how much money to provide public schools, state GOP leaders also say they are unconvinced that increasing funding to school districts will improve student outcomes. While Republicans control the Pennsylvania Senate, Democrats control the House.

When schools get more money, students tend to stay in school longer and score better on exams, according to a 2023 review of dozens of studies.

Vouchers have a questionable track record regarding their ability to improve student outcomes. But private school choice programs have proliferated at the state level in recent years. President Donald Trump supports vouchers. And a Republican budget bill in Congress would establish $5 billion in annual tax credits to fund private school scholarships, although the future of that provision of the bill is also unclear.

Pennsylvania Republicans have tried but failed for years to create a new voucher program at the state level. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, at one time supported legislation to establish vouchers, but he subsequently backed off that position and vetoed the Lifeline Scholarships proposal in 2023. State Sen. Anthony Williams, a Philadelphia Democrat, has also supported state GOP voucher proposals, including this year’s PASS legislation.

Pennsylvania already has two programs that use tax credits to fund scholarships: the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and the Education Improvement Tax Credit.

Philadelphia school leaders say district needs more funding

The Pennsylvania House policy committee, which White convened Monday to discuss Philly schools, has no legislative or administrative power over the school district. But White said what she and other lawmakers need to see in Philly are “real results for kids and families.”

Though White said school district representatives were invited to the hearing, none were available to answer lawmakers’ questions in person and submitted written testimony instead.

Superintendent Tony Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater wrote in their testimony that the district has made “significant” progress improving student attendance, decreasing the number of students who have dropped out, improving third graders’ reading scores, as well as students passing their career and technical exams.

They also wrote that the district has “stabilized its finances,” received a positive credit rating affirmation, and are in need of more funding — which state lawmakers are in a position to provide or withhold.

“Despite making academic gains and appropriately managing our finances, decades of chronic underfunding continues to be a critical challenge for the district,” Watlington and Streater wrote.

White expressed disappointment that no district officials appeared in person to testify. District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a Monday email that officials have invited White to meet with district leaders.

The policy committee did hear testimony from one Philadelphia parent as well as Christian Barnard, a policy analyst with the libertarian Reason Foundation think tank who criticized the district in several ways.

For example, Barnard (and White) said they were unhappy with the level of fiscal transparency publicly available for individual schools. However, school-level budgets are on the district’s website and include line-item descriptions of funding allotments for staff, extracurriculars, special education, and more.

Barnard also said the district is being inefficient by not reapportioning staff to account for school enrollment changes. Though the district recently ended the controversial practice of reassigning teachers once the school year has begun, Braxton said that staff are still moved around according to school needs and budgets. And Barnard said he was “skeptical” about the district’s assertion that it is underfunded, a claim backed up by a Commonwealth Court judge’s 2023 opinion that found the state system of funding schools was unconstitutional.

The Philly district, which is facing a growing annual deficit, is also undertaking a “rightsizing” process that the school board has warned will likely result in some school closures, colocations, or repurposing buildings.

Ultimately. White said the district is working through its challenges, but she would like to see the district embrace more choice for families — starting with approving additional charter school proposals or seat expansions. The school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018 but it has added more than 2,000 charter seats over the same period of time.

White also said that lawmakers “need to know that taxpayer funds are not being wasted or misallocated.”

She said she hopes to collaborate on that effort with the school district and bring that message to the state capitol.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia tutoring program focused on student literacy cut by DOGE

2025-05-06T19:20:34+00:00

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Tyreek Wiggins struggled to read anything longer than three-letter words at the start of this school year.

But with the help of his Joyful Readers tutor Kirra Silver, Tyreek — a third grader at Philadelphia’s Mastery Prep Elementary Charter School — quickly began gaining confidence.

He mastered the challenging and sometimes conflicting “z” and “s” sounds and jumped six units ahead in his studies. Last week, dressed in a sharp grey suit and classic black fedora, Tyreek accepted a 2025 Young Reader of the Year award from the tutoring program to mark his accomplishments.

He held his trophy high to a cheering crowd and triumphantly announced: “Reading is not my best skill, but I am improving.”

Not long before that ceremony, however, David Weinstein, the founder of the Joyful Readers program, got some much less uplifting news. The group’s grant would be terminated effective immediately as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to AmeriCorps through the U.S. DOGE Service.

Joyful Readers is one of the 28 AmeriCorps programs across Pennsylvania that has been gutted by DOGE. While tutors will finish out this school year, its future is now uncertain. Cuts to AmeriCorps have also affected student tutoring programs elsewhere.

Weinstein, a former AmeriCorps member who spent his first year of service at Kensington High School, said the order ending the grants came from DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency and is led by business executive Elon Musk. The order stated that the work Joyful Readers was doing no longer matches the federal government’s priorities.

The anger and sadness came immediately, Weinstein said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

“Since when is teaching kids to read not a national priority?” Weinstein said.

AmeriCorps, created by Congress in 1993, pays young people a small stipend and some money to help offset the cost of a college degree to spend a year working full-time on community service projects. Every year, more than 200,000 AmeriCorps volunteers and workers nationwide work on disaster relief efforts, educational programs like tutoring, environmental stewardship, community health programs, and services for military veterans.

In Philadelphia, AmeriCorps members work with the school district to provide computer science tutoring and mentoring, arts education, academic instruction, social-emotional support, and more to thousands of students through programs like Joyful Readers, City Year, ArtistYear, and Teach For America (TFA).

But in April, federal government representatives informed these program leaders and the state agencies that disburse their grants that some $400 million in contracts would be cancelled across the country — $6 million of that was designated for Pennsylvania

For Weinstein, that would have meant sending a late-night email or making a phone call to his 50 tutors to tell them not to show up to school the next day. Those tutors who told their students “yes you’re going to see me at the next session” would have had to “break that promise,” Weinstein said. And 1,000 Philly kids like Tyreek would have been left to wonder what happened.

Weinstein said he avoided all of that by pulling together enough funding for his tutors to finish the school year.

Weinstein said the program’s grant this year was for some $833,500. As part of the AmeriCorps program, Joyful Readers was required to find matching funds from the Philadelphia community. They applied for an expanded grant next year to support up to 75 AmeriCorps members, but Weinstein said he hasn’t heard back yet.

“It’s hard to imagine we’d receive that grant,” Weinstein said.

Lawsuits say gutting AmeriCorps will have ‘irreparable’ impacts

Weinstein said he’s managed to keep the program afloat for the time being, but he’s eagerly awaiting the results of legal challenges to the AmeriCorps cuts.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed on to a multistate lawsuit alleging the Trump administration’s “abrupt decision to dismantle AmeriCorps flouts Congress’s creation” of the agency and “usurps Congress’s power of the purse and thereby violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.”

“The gutting of AmeriCorps will inflict immediate and irreparable harms on the Plaintiff States, their residents, and the public at large,” the suit says.

According to the complaint, more than 7,700 K-12 students in the Philadelphia area have an AmeriCorps teacher.

Education advocacy groups, community organizations, and the AmeriCorps Employees Union AFSCME Local 2027 have also filed their own suit challenging the cuts.

Without the services provided by AmeriCorps, the teacher shortage in the city would get worse, said Anna Shurak, executive director of Teach For America Philadelphia.

This school year, 120 out of more than 300 vacant positions were ultimately filled by TFA educators. More than 400 TFA alumni work as teachers in Philadelphia classrooms. And nearly 10% of all Philadelphia principals are TFA alumni, Shurak said.

“At a time when teachers are needed more than ever, Teach for America plays the vital role of having folks coming in that are committed, that are interested, that are focused on our students,” Shurak said.

If the AmeriCorps cuts stand, Shurak said, it will not only rip educators away from their classrooms but hamper TFA’s ability to recruit young people into the teacher pipeline — a process that was already strained in the years following the pandemic.

For Philly school leaders, the chaos and uncertainty of the Trump administration’s cuts to education programs has been “consuming,” Lewis Elkin Elementary School Principal Charlotte Gillum said in an interview.

One of Gillum’s students, second grader Saarenn Roberts, also won a Joyful Readers Young Reader of the Year award this year.

While the school works with a variety of programs to meet the needs of their students, Joyful Readers is a standout, Gillum said. She said the tutors work on self-confidence and “make the students believe in themselves” while also working to improve reading skills.

It’s “that mix that allows students to know they can stumble and they can be OK and keep trying,” Gillum said, which delivers real results for her students.

“It is disappointing that there is an attack on education that is going to potentially rob us of that,” Gillum said.

Juny Ardon, Saarenn’s Joyful Readers tutor, said at the awards ceremony that to help elementary school students with reading, “you need more than just methods and strategies. You need heart and humanity.”

Autumn Taylor and her tutor Fionna Farrell celebrate Autumn's Young Reader of the Year award.

Lakia Cintron, whose daughter Autumn Taylor won a Joyful Readers award, said she’s seen Autumn’s reading improve significantly but she’s also “improved as a person as well.” Cintron said, “she’s elevating.”

Tyreek’s tutor Kirra Silver said she’s disappointed the federal government is targeting programs like Joyful Readers.

The more that students and children have access to programs like Joyful Readers, “the better it will be for our society,” Silver said.

Silver’s advice to parents and caregivers if Joyful Readers ends?

“Read to your kids as much as possible, uplift them, tell them it is OK to make mistakes as long as you’re trying,” Silver said.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect more precise teacher vacancy figures from Teach For America.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Broken sinks, rodents, mysterious dripping liquid: Philly students want their schools fixed

2025-04-24T19:02:57+00:00

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A group of seniors at the Academy at Palumbo High School in South Philly was so fed up with their deteriorating building that they decided to investigate.

They started documenting their “grimy” unusable bathrooms, the stifling heat and humidity in the gym and lunchroom, the peeling paint, rodent sightings, and mysterious liquid dripping from classroom ceilings.

They also documented what their peers around the city thought. As part of advocacy group Generation Citizen’s civics day earlier this month, the Palumbo students surveyed their classmates and students across the district asking for their experience with school conditions. What they found disappointed them: More than 77% of the 200 respondents said they noticed maintenance issues at their schools, and nearly 68% rated the conditions of their bathrooms a two out of five — or worse.

Such responses were consistent across schools, they said, including at coveted magnets like Central High School. The students said they intend to bring these concerns to the district and school board at their action meeting on Thursday.

Palumbo students say their bathroom conditions are "grimy."

The district is undergoing a facilities planning process to overhaul its buildings with the hope of improving some of these conditions for students in the years to come. But that process isn’t moving fast enough for the thousands of Philly students who say their learning conditions now aren’t setting them up for academic success.

Palumbo’s building was constructed in 1930, and the students there now said they can tell.

Student Kimora Kelly said it makes her “miserable” to feel like their building isn’t receiving appropriate funding, resources, and care.

“We see our school, and then compare [it to] other suburban schools. Their schools are so much cleaner, look more fresh. It looks like a better environment to actually learn,” Palumbo senior Kian Lieu told Chalkbeat.

Lieu’s cousin attends one of those suburban schools where “the paint is white instead of yellow,” he said.

“This environment doesn’t make you want to come to school,” Lieu said. “We are grateful for what we have, but you know, things can always be better.”

Philly students, educators, and school staff have been telling the district about their poor bathroom conditions and insufficient ventilation, heating, and cooling for years. The average age of a Philly public school building is around 73 years old. But some, like Palumbo, have been around for nearly a century or longer.

At several student-focused community meetings this past winter, young people told district officials about dirty bathrooms, rats, overcrowding, and a general feeling of neglect.

“A lot of the people who are responsible for our buildings haven’t been in one,” or spent sufficient time in them like the students and staff have, said Palumbo student Gretta Rogan. “We joke about inviting [elected officials] here and giving them lots of water and then letting them see the bathrooms for themselves.”

While there was toilet paper in these bathroom stalls, Palumbo students say often by the end of the month, there isn't enough.

As of 2023, there were some 2,000 bathrooms spread across Philadelphia’s 218 district school buildings, yet the district only employed eight plumbers, according to district data. In the 2022-23 school year, district officials told school board members that it takes some 50 days for bathroom repairs to be completed.

According to district spokesperson Christina Clark, the district now employs 10 plumbers in addition to outside contractors.

Clark said in an email that the district launched a “restroom task force” in January and will report data from that task force in July. She also said officials have “streamlined the work order process” and improved internal forms and systems to “ensure faster response times.”

“Preliminary data from the current school year shows that repair timelines have improved, with average turnaround times decreasing in many schools,” Clark said. “We continue to monitor progress closely and are committed to both improving infrastructure and communicating more clearly with our school communities about timelines and expectations. We are determined to provide our students with clean, safe, and functional spaces.”

Student waits to leave school before using bathroom

On the day Chalkbeat visited Palumbo in April, several bathroom sinks were out of order, and while most stalls had some toilet paper, “most of the time they don’t,” Kelly said. The doors don’t consistently close or lock and long waiting lines between classes can make students late.

“I just wait until I go home to use the bathroom” Kelly said.

When sinks don't work, Palumbo students say they have to wait in long lines to wash their hands, delaying their return to class.

The second floor gym has a different problem. “You have no air, the windows don’t open, so you’re just sitting there sweating in this hot room” Kelly said. “With no air, what am I supposed to do? Just pass out?”

For their investigation, the Palumbo seniors also spoke with a member of their custodial staff who told them cleaning supplies and toilet paper are often in short supply. While they try their best to keep the school clean, janitorial workers told the students there’s only so much they can do without closing the school entirely to upgrade bathrooms and fix electrical issues.

What their schools and the district need is more funding and better systems to allocate it, the students said. A Commonwealth Court Judge ruled in 2023 that Pennsylvania’s school funding process was unconstitutional, shortchanging districts like Philly and exacerbating many of these building challenges.

As the city and state continue to shape their budgets this summer, Palumbo students said adding funding for school facilities is nonnegotiable.

Without repairs, the decrepit building conditions will continue to affect the way students feel about their schools, their ability to learn, and could even drive enrollment down, the Palumbo students said.

A few months ago, student Kayla Howard said Palumbo — which is a selective admissions magnet school — hosted an open house to court prospective families.

Seeing their faces as they took in the “dirty, dull” floors and walls, Howard said, was “sort of embarrassing for our image, and also just our reputation as a whole.”

The Palumbo students said as part of their project, they wanted to think about possible solutions. They highlighted the city’s Whole Home Repair program which provides funding to low-income homeowners to fix roofs, electrical systems, heating and cooling issues, and more.

Could something like that work for schools? The students think it could be worth a shot.

“We have the bare essentials to be in a school,” student Emily Alava said, “but the effort isn’t put there to make us enjoy being in school.”

This story has been updated to include a response from the School District of Philadelphia.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania GOP to hold hearing on ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ in Philly schools

2025-04-18T18:49:14+00:00

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Pennsylvania Republicans plan to hold a hearing about purported “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the School District of Philadelphia, but made no specific allegations in their announcement.

Meanwhile, district leaders say they’ve been responsible with taxpayer money.

State Rep. Martina White, who represents parts of Philadelphia, issued a notice this week that on May 19, the House Republican Policy Committee will be hosting a hearing aimed at investigating the district and “uncovering solutions that prioritize the success of our children.”

White is also urging people to report any “mismanagement, waste, or abuse” within the district as well as any “ideas to improve schools, reduce inefficiencies, or enhance student outcomes,” via a website titled: “School District of Philadelphia Oversight.”

The issue of government waste and inefficiency has received unprecedented attention recently, due in large part to the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service led by Elon Musk. The Trump administration, Musk, and DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — have cited waste, fraud, and abuse to justify cutting programs for students with disabilities, teacher training grants, and the entire Philly division of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. But what exactly that phrase entails is the subject of intense dispute.

“Over the years, parents, students, educators, and community members have witnessed or experienced firsthand the challenges within the School District of Philadelphia,” wrote White, who did not mention DOGE in an April email obtained by Chalkbeat. “From waste and mismanagement of resources to fraud and systemic abuse, these issues have not only hindered progress but have also led many families to seek alternatives for their children’s education.”

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said repeatedly that the district under his leadership has been a “good steward” of state and city funding. Watlington’s refrain this year has been that student attendance is up, the four-year graduation rate is up, the dropout rate is down, the district’s credit rating has improved, and some standardized test scores are improving.

Still, Watlington told reporters at a recent budget briefing that due to decades of court-determined underfunding and the end of pandemic relief aid, the district is facing a growing annual deficit. Philly schools are also undergoing a facilities “rightsizing” process that the school board has warned will likely result in some school closures, colocations, or repurposing.

A spokesperson for the Philly school district said Friday that Watlington and other district leaders would respond “in a timely manner” if state lawmakers reach out to them about the hearing.

White has previously been critical of the district’s handling of overcrowding in the Northeast section of the city. She has also pushed for spending increases for school choice programs in the state.

Some progressive advocates have questioned the district’s spending on outside contractors in recent years. And city lawmakers have pushed the district for more transparency around the costs associated with the district’s teacher discipline process. Many charter school advocates have also alleged the district’s charter school approval process is inefficient and flawed.

White’s office said she was unavailable for comment Friday.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Trump DEI threat endangers 10% of Philadelphia schools budget

2025-04-04T21:15:09+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district is at risk of losing a tenth of its overall budget due to a Trump administration threat to strip federal funding from states that don’t publicly pledge that they’ve eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

U.S. Department of Education officials directed state education commissioners on Thursday to certify within the next 10 days that they have eliminated DEI programs, which the administration considers illegal under civil rights law. Failure to comply would lead to a loss of federal funding, the directive said, specifically Title I money designated for high-poverty districts.

Such cuts could have major implications for the already cash-strapped district. Federal education aid accounts for about 10% of the district’s budget of more than $4.5 billion. Philadelphia received over $193 million in federal Title I formula aid in 2024-25 and another $43 million in Title I grants specifically for school improvement, according to district budget documents.

At a Friday event memorializing Martin Luther King Jr. on the calendar day when he was assassinated, speakers took the opportunity to denounce the Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate the Department of Education and threats to withhold funding from school districts.

“When public education is weakened, it is students, especially in cities like ours, who suffer the most,” Martin Luther King High School student Aniyah Daniels said at a press conference at her school on Friday.

So far, Pennsylvania education officials have not commented on the order. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia School District said district officials are still reviewing the order but had no further comment as of Friday.

The latest attack on DEI from the federal government stems from the Trump administration’s controversial interpretation of both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Experts are questioning the legality of this latest move. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late January about withholding federal money from schools that teach “discriminatory equity ideology” — a reference to DEI.

According to the Philadelphia school district’s website, its office of diversity, equity, and inclusion “serves as the bedrock for the School District’s commitment to anti-racism.” And the district’s commitment to equity is interwoven throughout Superintendent Tony Watlington’s five-year strategic plan for the district.

The Education Department’s Thursday directive lacked specifics, leaving educators to question what might be included in the administration’s broad definition of DEI.

Philly’s African American history course mandate, in addition to policies aimed at diversifying the selective admissions process and charter schools focused on Black students, could be among the programs threatened by the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI initiatives.

Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes told Chalkbeat the threat to Title I funds over DEI was “asinine” and said it was an admission that the federal government does not want students to be taught “American history.”

“I would hope that Pennsylvania would not sign,” Hughes said, adding, “It needs to be fought, we’ll go to court and hopefully we’ll prevail in court”

U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat representing Montgomery and Berks counties, said Trump and his allies are targeting schools because they “want an uneducated electorate.”

“It’s Orwellian, frankly,” Dean said at Friday’s press conference. “I’m here to say I will not sit down and be silent while this is going on.”

Martin Luther King High School Principal Keisha Wilkins said her students would be hurt by eradicating DEI, specifically if district schools ceased to teach African American history.

“Knowing our history helps us to not repeat it,” Wilkins said. “I’m fearful that the programs we’ve put into place will not be here anymore”

Standing alongside lawmakers, public education advocates, and city representatives, Wilkins also struck a defiant tone. “I am scared but I also know my children are resilient,” she said, adding, “we have power in numbers.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia parents demanding more joy in schools bring campaign to City Council

2025-04-04T17:19:35+00:00

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A group of Philadelphia parents and caregivers say they’re sick of schools that they allege disproportionately discipline Black students, restrict access to recess or restrooms as a form of punishment, and fail to meet students’ emotional needs.

What do they say would help reduce those problems? A joy chief.

Advocates with Lift Every Voice, a Black-led parent and community organizing group, packed City Council chambers during Friday’s joint committee meeting waving metallic magenta pom-poms and demanding city and district leaders do more to make schools places that students are excited to attend.

They and their supporters have been urging school district and city leaders to take student joy seriously for more than a year. Among other things, they’re renewing their calls for the City Council and school district to hire a “Chief of Joy” who would audit school culture across the district and recommend policies to support students’ mental and physical health.

Several councilmembers expressed their strong support for the campaign.

“If we want better outcomes, if we want our kids to show up and succeed, we have to make sure our schools are places where they feel safe, supported and valued,” Councilmember Kendra Brooks said. “Joy is a serious intervention. Joy is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

Students joined Lift Every Voice advocates in City Council on Friday to ask for more recess and opportunities to express joy at school.

Amid a fiery national debate over education that often focuses on parental rights, eliminating social-emotional learning, and eradicating programs that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, Philly parents who support Lift Every Voice’s mission say those are things schools desperately need more of, not less.

Amy Furling, a district parent and Lift Every Voice advocate, said the group has been meeting regularly with the school district to discuss standardizing a 20-minute minimum recess policy, but she told the City Council “that’s clearly not enough.”

“There’s a lot more that we need to do and a lot more that we expect and demand of the district,” she said.

Jayme Banks, the school district’s deputy chief of prevention, trauma and intervention, told City Council members the district is in “active partnership” with Lift Every Voice. She also said the district supports the group’s calls for programs and systems that “promote respectful and inclusive practices, affirm student dignity, and elevate student voices.”

Banks outlined how the district has focused on restorative justice practices when students misbehave, and that students should not have their access to food, water, and restrooms restricted as a form of punishment. Banks said the district has held professional training about appropriate discipline policies and is “leaning into schools” to examine their own discipline data.

Lift Every Voice hasn’t attached a specific funding demand to its requests. But Banks cautioned staffing shortages and budget constraints limit the district’s ability to make sure its own policies are adequately followed everywhere. The Trump administration’s threats to withhold federal funding from schools that use DEI policies further complicates the district’s budget projections.

With additional funding, the district could hire more counselors and climate staff members, and expand access to art and music programs like Lift Every Voice is calling for, district officials have said.

Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas did signal that education funding increases may be coming in the City Council’s proposed budget this year. Mayor Cherelle Parker proposed increasing the school district’s share of the city’s property tax revenue from 56% to 56.5% in fiscal 2030 to pay for teacher salary increases. Thomas said the council will be proposing to move that up to fiscal 2026.

“I pray that before we leave office that we are able to raise our hands and say we fixed the education crisis in the city,” Thomas said.

But parent advocate Keisha Nicholson said underfunding is only part of the problem.

“Disinvestment is violence and too often, poor Black parents are left to pay the price and shoulder the blame for broken systems,” Nicholson said. “We want you to carry our stories — our grief, our rage, our hope, and our clarity — into the budget process.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher salary increases a long-term priority for Philadelphia mayor in her education budget

2025-03-13T22:11:33+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s second city budget address Thursday promised millions for teacher salary increases to be realized in 2030 but was otherwise light on education funding details.

Parker’s $6.7 billion budget and accompanying five-year plan rely on continued funding from last year’s shift in property tax revenue, which administration officials say will amount to a $250 million funding increase for city schools through 2030. But her proposal falls short of the transformative funding boost some advocates have called for in the face of federal uncertainty.

Parker’s budget seeks to increase the school district’s share of the city’s property tax revenue from 56% to 56.5% in fiscal 2030. The mayor’s office says that increase will pay for an additional $12 million per year to the district “to be specifically earmarked for teacher salaries.” Her spending plan would also add $4 million to district coffers via higher Center City parking fees, and nearly double the number of schools participating in her extended-day, extended-year school program.

As Philly’s mayor, Parker must present a one-year budget as well as a five-year spending plan. Parker was elected to a four-year term in 2023 and can run for another term in 2027, but the change in property tax revenue for the district would take effect three years after the end of her first term. The City Council ultimately adopts the city budget.

The school district is also currently negotiating a new contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Parker’s proposal could be a signal that she would like to see raises as a part of that new contract.

“As proud as we are of our efforts to improve the quality of our educational system during the first year of the Parker administration, we know how much more work remains to be done,” Parker said in her address to members of the City Council on Thursday.

The school district’s budget is $4.6 billion. Of that amount, $2 billion comes from the city, $2.4 billion from the state, and nearly $180 million from the federal government. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget for 2025-26 includes a $200 million increase for Philadelphia schools but that increase is subject to negotiations by state lawmakers.

Most of the district’s federal aid comes through the Title I program that focuses on students from low-income backgrounds, and through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. President Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to radically shrink if not totally dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. However, the recent job cuts at the Education Department did not affect funding levels for those and other federal programs.

The Trump administration’s layoffs at the Education Department hit the Office of Civil Rights particularly hard; all of the staff at the office’s Philadelphia branch were let go.

At a separate Wednesday press conference, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said “nobody knows exactly how these layoffs are taking effect” in Philadelphia or what the impact will be on pending civil rights complaints.

“This continuing chaos will stop kids from learning,” Steinberg said.

Parker did not mention any changes in funding for the city’s free prekindergarten program in her budget address. The city released its complete budget proposal Thursday evening.

What’s in Parker’s budget for Philadelphia schools?

The most prominent part of Parker’s proposal for education spending is the district’s increased share of property tax revenue, which would take effect in fiscal 2030.

Last year’s shift of the district’s share from 55% to 56% brought the district an additional $24 million, according to city budget representatives — though they originally anticipated that figure would be closer to $18 million.

Parker is also proposing to raise parking fees in and around Center City from $3 to $4 an hour and direct additional revenue from that increase to the district. Parker said this would be the first parking rate increase since 2014, and that the additional revenue would be divided between the school district and the city’s general fund.

In her address, Parker also reiterated her support for her “year-round school” campaign promise, which has translated into an expansion of “extended-day, extended-year” schooling. In its first pilot year, the program largely expanded access to already-existing before- and after-school programming that’s mostly delivered by nonprofits and outside organizations.

Parker said her proposed budget proposes expanding that program from 25 schools to 40 schools — 30 of the schools would be district-operated and 10 would be charters. Her administration claims this would add 5,000 seats to the year-round school program, for a total of 12,000 seats across the city. According to the budget proposal, Parker is estimating the cost of that expansion to be $10.9 million over five years.

Parker’s office did not release an expanded list of schools that Parker wants to offer extended schooling.

Earlier in Thursday’s council session, City Councilmember and Chair of the Education Committee Isiah Thomas introduced a resolution “opposing any attempts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education or slash federal funding for public school programs that support low-income students and students with disabilities.” The council adopted the resolution via a voice vote.

Thomas also signaled that the City Council may seek to increase the share of property tax revenue schools receive above the mayor’s proposal.

“I think the .5 percent increase in real estate taxes is a good start. We’re going to possibly entertain even more than that,” Thomas told Chalkbeat.

Clarification: This story has been updated with a more precise figure for the cost of extended-day, extended-year school expansion following the release of the city’s budget documents.

Dale Mezzacappa also contributed to this story.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school board rejects 2 charter applications

2025-02-28T03:08:21+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to deny applications to create two charter schools Thursday — despite board members’ positive comments about one of them.

The board adjourned to go into executive session and deliberate in private before voting no on the applications to establish Early College High School and Pan American Academy High School.

The votes dashed charter supporters’ hopes, at least for now, that the board appointed by Mayor Cherelle Parker would finally be ready to expand the charter sector. The school board hasn’t approved a new charter since it regained control of the district from the state in 2018.

The proposed Early College Charter School went down by a vote of 6-3. The vote against the proposed Pan American Academy — Pathways High School, was 8-0, with one abstention.

Board members said the primary reason they voted to deny Early College’s application was financial uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s threats to withhold federal funding, although they did not spell out those concerns.

“This was a very strong application. I am very close to wanting to approve it, but I don’t feel comfortable based on the funding piece,” said Board Vice President Sarah-Ashley Andrews. “I can’t gamble with our babies on that.”

On Pan American, the members said they objected to the applicant’s decision to apply for a new school rather than for an expansion of their existing K-8 school. They were also concerned about its funding and its high suspension rates of students, especially Black students.

The denials came as the district is engaged in a facilities planning process that is likely to result in several school closures. And in 2023 one charter school closed unexpectedly, and another one, West Philadelphia Achievement Charter Elementary, is now in a protracted fight with the district over $30 million the state says it owes the district for overenrolling students.

The application for Pan American Pathways High School was affiliated with K-8 Pan American Academy. The applicants sought to offer a bilingual International Baccalaureate program for grades 9-12 and focus on four pathways: health sciences, technology, business and human services.

The other denial was for Early College High School. Keshema Davidson, one of several founding Early College board members who are associated with Cristo Rey, a Catholic high school in the city, told board members in advance of the vote that a school was needed that would give students “the opportunity to succeed no matter their pathway” for either college prep or career and technical education.

After the vote, the Early College founders issued a statement saying they were “disappointed in the outcome of tonight’s vote” but said there is a “long road ahead.”

The city’s deputy chief education officer Sharon Ward was present for the votes. She told Chalkbeat after the meeting that Parker is “concerned about all students” regardless of where they go to school. During her 2023 campaign for mayor, while not explicitly calling for the charter sector to expand, Parker repeatedly said she wanted to see an end to the “competition” between the school district and charters.

Ward emphasized that the board, though appointed by Parker, is an independent body that “has to be guided by state law,” on this front.

Charter schools office flags enrollment, suspension stats

Peng Chao, the director of the district’s charter schools office, offered evaluations of the applications but no recommendations, as is the district’s policy.

He said Pan American’s K-8 school has a high student suspension rate, especially for Black students. Chao said that 17% of all students — and 34% of Black students — were suspended at least once, compared to 5% in other schools.

Chao shared data showing that third through eighth graders at Pan American scored far behind students in comparable schools and the district as a whole in standardized tests.

Meanwhile, Chao raised concerns about Early College’s planned reliance on foundation support, and noted that it had not yet identified its future principal and other leaders. He also raised concerns about whether it could meet its projected enrollment targets.

The last new charter, Hebrew Public in East Falls, was established in 2018 under the School Reform Commission, which governed the district when it was under state oversight for 17 years starting in 2001.

Over the past seven years the board has approved multiple charter renewals, adding some 2,600 seats to existing charter schools.

During that time the board has also denied several charter applications. Last year, it voted four times to deny the application of Global Leadership Academy, a K-8 school in West Philadelphia, to add a high school.

More than a dozen speakers, including several students, spoke in favor of the new charters. “It’s hard to watch friends from higher grades leave,” said Pan American student Yediel Huertas, supporting the addition of a high school.

Board member Wanda Novales was the founding principal of Pan American’s K-8 school and led the school from 2008 to 2018. Before that, she was a teacher and principal in the district. She abstained from the vote.

Brick-and-mortar charters in Philadelphia now educate about 64,000 students, compared to 118,000 in district-run schools.

Around 25 charters are now operating with expired agreements. Yet under state law, they can stay open even without a new signed charter. Pan American, citing concerns about accountability, failed to sign their charter renewals in 2018 and 2023.

The board is revising its process for authorizing charter schools, through an initiative called Project RiSE, in an effort to “reimagine charter school excellence by refining the performance framework.” But it has done so largely out of the public eye.

Earlier Thursday afternoon, several hundred people from Philly for Great Public Schools and the African American Charter Schools Coalition rallied in front of school board headquarters to support the charter applications.

Participants said that they want more choice for parents, especially of schools focused on the Black experience, but they also think that city schools should get more funding from the city and state.

“We need both public and charter schools,” said Stephanie Roberts, an artist who works with students.

Bureau Chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philly students and families are stuck in a ‘decade of stalled progress,’ report says

2025-02-25T20:52:01+00:00

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Philadelphia families and children are mired in an underresourced and bureaucratically complex system that is not meaningfully meeting their needs and hasn’t been for a decade, according to a far-reaching new report authored by education advocacy group Children First.

Children First researchers examined ten years of data from the city’s school district, early childhood sector, child health care field, juvenile justice space, and more, and determined Philly families have been stuck in a “decade of stalled progress.”

As of this year, the report found:

An estimated 47% or 152,000 children in the city came from families who were struggling financially to meet their needs.
Some 65% of students did not pass third grade reading assessments, while 3 in 5 eighth graders didn’t pass the state standardized math test.
The number of children starting school without the required vaccinations has increased fourfold.
More than 48% of young people report feeling sad or depressed, and over 67,700 children need access to mental health services.

“We were pretty shocked by what we found,” Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, said at an event at the school district’s headquarters on Tuesday. “We were surprised when we looked back over the decade that the economic condition of families has worsened by and large.”

The report comes at a time when the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from school districts, considered deep cuts to Medicaid, and boosted Republican-led plans to gut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, among other government cost-cutting efforts.

“All of that will make the lives of children worse,” Cooper said. “As there’s a national conversation about ‘Is the federal government doing too much?’ Looking at the reality that children face in Philadelphia, the answer is a resounding no. It’s not doing enough.”

Parents like Regina Brown experience the reality of those data points every day. In January, one of Brown’s sons was sent to a juvenile detention center on a gun charge. She said she fought for years to get him services in the school district to help him deal with his learning disabilities and emotional challenges but was unsuccessful. Now, she said, she’s fighting to see him returned to her home safely.

“I felt like they were just tired of him and wanted him out of the school,” Brown said at Tuesday’s event. “I want him to understand that he made bad choices, but he’s not a bad person. That he can come back from it.”

Here are some of the takeaways from the report:

Student demographics are changing

There are fewer Black and white children living in the city now than in 2014 — though Black children still represent the largest child demographic — and the number of Hispanic and Asian American children has grown.

Hispanic children are the fastest growing group of newcomers to Philadelphia. The report determined there are nearly 10,500 more Hispanic children in Philadelphia since 2014 – an increase from 20% to 24% of the child population. The number of public school children whose first language is Spanish increased by 51% since the 2018 school year, according to district data.

That has meant the demand for district language resources, translation, and Spanish-speaking support staff has risen sharply while the supply has struggled to keep pace. Immigrant rights advocates are expected to bring these concerns to the school board meeting on Thursday as the Trump administration’s focus on deportations continues to cause fear and confusion in Philly communities.

Hundreds of thousands of Philly children live in poverty

Nearly half of the city’s children come from families who can’t afford to meet their needs without going into debt, the report found. An estimated 110,852 public school students, or 54% of the city’s student body, live in poverty — enough to nearly fill two of the city’s sports arenas, according to the report.

Despite an overall decrease in the percentage of students living in poverty in the last nine years, the number of children who rely on SNAP benefits has increased by 7,500 children since 2019. Similarly, the number of children benefitting from the federal government’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, reached a five-year high of 31,619 in 2024. Those benefit programs have been targeted by the Trump administration for cuts.

The number of children experiencing homelessness has nearly doubled, reaching a high of 5,799 in the 2024 school year, according to the report, though community groups say they identified more than 10,000 homeless students last year.

Philly students are struggling academically

Students are also still recovering academically from the school closures during the COVID pandemic. The report states 65% (8,044) of third graders in the city’s traditional public elementary schools cannot read proficiently. State test score results and national test data bear this out.

The schools with the fewest students who can pass the reading test overwhelmingly serve the city’s highest-poverty communities, the report found. Meanwhile, in the two traditional public elementary schools with the highest income rates, Greenfield and Meredith schools, nearly all third graders passed the standardized reading test.

But there were some small bright spots: Hispanic students surpassed their pre-pandemic math achievement levels, and fourth grade math scores improved — a trend Superintendent Tony Watlington has linked in part to the district’s investments in new curriculum.

Philly high schools’ career and technical education programs — which mostly serve students from low-income backgrounds and have bipartisan support from state lawmakers — are also struggling to meet community demand, according to the report’s findings.

The number of Philadelphia students in CTE programs fluctuated but “virtually saw no change” over the last decade, researchers found. Meanwhile, more than 200 of the state’s teacher vacancies are for CTE positions, and an estimated 27,000 students are on CTE waitlists, according to the report.

Students’ mental and physical health is a pressing issue

Among the most pressing issues affecting students in and out of the classroom is their physical and mental health.

One in five children experience a mental, emotional, or behavioral health disorder, the report states. City students who considered and attempted suicide in the past year continued to rise post-COVID, the researchers found.

Donna Fields, a school nurse at Franklin Learning Center, public school parent, and parent advocate with Children First, said she’s seen an increase in students having panic attacks, nosebleeds, and other anxiety-related issues exacerbated in part by school classrooms that are at times, stiflingly hot, overcrowded, and poorly ventilated.

“Physical alterations are just the norm at this point,” Fields said.

Cooper also raised a growing concern about children’s disease immunity and the impact that politics has had on children’s vaccination rates. From 2015 to 2024, the non-medical vaccine exemption rate of Philadelphia kindergarteners quadrupled, from 0.6% to 2.4%, according to the report.

“The appointment of RFK Jr. presents an entirely new challenge for the Philadelphia School District,” Cooper said. Robert Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, was confirmed to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this month.

The early childhood field can’t meet families’ needs

Starting to address these systemic issues begins with the youngest learners, advocates and experts said at the Tuesday event. While Philly’s free preschool programs provide opportunities to thousands of children, many families have found them confusing and difficult to navigate, and chronic staffing shortages have limited the access and availability of high-quality prekindergarten.

According to the report, child care providers have had to close classrooms and turn away 3,855 children in 2024 because they don’t have enough staff. Tiffany Chavous, CEO of Somerset Academy Early Learning Center, said she’s been trying to open a new classroom to meet the demand but hasn’t been able to find enough educators and caregivers to staff it.

The report found infant care costs in Philadelphia increased by 22%, and toddler care rose 20% from 2013 to 2024. In 2024, the average family spent almost 24% of their household budget on infant care, more than three times the federal recommendation of 7%.

Recommendations: Spend more money on schools and social services

The Children First report calls for a wide-ranging combination of state and local investments as state lawmakers begin their budget negotiation process.

For the school district, the report recommends investing in teacher training programs, classroom supplies, high-impact tutoring, reducing class sizes, and reaching out to engage families.

Parents who spoke at the event called for the district to reduce bureaucracy, simplify the processes to find good schools and get students enrolled, improve its communication, and provide more direct services to meet young people where they are. Parents said Tuesday they want more case managers, social workers, translators, and school staff to support them and their children.

Parent Donna Fields said from her perspective as a nurse, the district needs new school facilities that are safe, comfortable, and free of environmental hazards.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania governor proposes over $200 million more for Philly schools

2025-02-04T21:39:17+00:00

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget would provide over $200 million more to Philadelphia schools.

In his spending blueprint for 2025-26, Shapiro is also requesting millions more for school repairs, free school breakfast, special education, student-teacher stipends, and student mental health.

The bulk of the increase for Philadelphia comes from Shapiro’s proposal to send an additional $494 million to the state’s highest needs school districts — based on their tax base and per-student costs — in the wake of a 2023 ruling that declared the previous state school funding formula unconstitutional. Of that amount, Philadelphia would receive $137 million.

Shapiro is also proposing changes to how cyber charter schools are funded by re-introducing an $8,000 standard tuition rate for all cyber students, which would save the district another $50 million if enacted. Shapiro proposed the same flat rate in his budget plan last year, but the final budget did not include it.

In addition, Shapiro is proposing a $75 million increase to be distributed to all school districts through the Basic Education Funding formula, the biggest single source of state school aid. City schools would get a $12.5 million increase through that funding stream, bringing their total to $1.6 billion out of $8.2 billion for schools statewide.

The final portion of the roughly $200 million increase for Philly schools would come from an additional $5.6 million for special education.

Even with those increases, Philadelphia would still need an additional $975 million to meet all the educational needs of its nearly 200,000 students in district and charter schools, according to a state analysis.

Shapiro included no money for private school vouchers in his budget. The governor backed the creation of vouchers in 2023, but ultimately signed a budget last year that didn’t include them.

“What we’re doing for education is working now – let’s continue to build on this foundation we’ve laid,” Shapiro said in a Tuesday speech in Harrisburg about his spending plan.

Shapiro’s remarks came shortly after several executive orders from President Donald Trump that expressed very different priorities for funding and other education issues. In his second term, Trump has issued directives to withhold funding for schools that teach “discriminatory equity ideology” and affirm the rights of transgender students. He also issued orders to send more federal funding to private school voucher programs and cleared the way for immigration arrests at schools, among other things.

“This nation saw significant political change in the last election,” said Shapiro, who was once rumored to be a frontrunner for vice president on the 2024 Democratic ticket. “Despite all that change in D.C., the voters here in Pennsylvania returned a Republican-controlled state Senate and a Democratic-controlled state House — with the exact same margins — to continue working with me to get stuff done.”

In his budget, districts would get $40 million more for special education and $5.5 million more for career and technical education. The state’s strained student-teacher stipend program would see a boost of $20 million, while the Pre-K Counts program would get a $17 million increase.

There would also be $23.5 million more for student transportation, $14.5 million additional for early intervention programs, and $10.8 million more for school food services, among other additions for education.

Shapiro’s budget proposal will now go through the legislative process over the next few months.

Shapiro doesn’t push for vouchers

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington told Chalkbeat last week he is focused on proving to conservative lawmakers that the district is a good steward of state funding.

Despite challenges for the district related to aging infrastructure, budgets, and long-term academic goals, he’s also touting more positive signs: Student attendance is up, as is the four-year graduation rate, Watlington said. The dropout rate is down by more than a thousand students and fourth grade math scores are improving. More funding will allow that progress to continue, he said.

“This proposed investment from the state would allow the District to continue accelerating academic achievement as the District works to become the fastest improving, large urban school district in the nation,” Watlington said in a statement Tuesday in response to Shapiro’s budget.

The negotiations over education spending must abide by a ruling from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, who found in February 2023 that the way the state funded schools was unconstitutional because aid was both inadequate and inequitably distributed. The system shortchanged students with greater needs, Jubelirer said.

“Last year, we made a commitment to not only invest a record amount of money in public education but create a brand-new formula that drives that money out to the schools that need it most,” Shapiro said. “You voted for that, I signed it into law, and we agreed to keep doing it until we meet our obligation.”

But public education advocates and policy analysts say even with Shapiro’s increases, the state should be doing more to fund struggling districts.

Donna Cooper, executive director of advocacy group Children First, praised Shapiro’s budget — but said the increases need to ramp up faster. Cooper said the $494 million dedicated to sending more money to the poorest districts is “history-making ... important and a needed departure from past policy.”

At the same time, she said, it is not enough if the remaining $3.5 billion state funding “adequacy gap” must be closed in three years, per a legislative Basic Education Funding Commission commitment after the judge’s 2023 decision. This amount won’t do it, she said. What Shapiro is proposing “will close the gap in seven years. We really believe that needs to be faster,” Cooper said.

Advocates at the Education Law Center PA and Public Interest Law Center, who represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the 2023 ruling from Jubelirer, said in a statement that “the current timeline for reaching adequacy remains too slow and means that today’s kindergartners will be nearing high school before schools have the funds the state admits they need to succeed.”

In addition to leaving out his proposal from last year to establish vouchers, which he called Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship and are also sometimes known as Lifeline Scholarships, Shapiro’s budget book does not show any increase for the state’s tax-credit scholarship programs that support private school tuition. Those programs would be flat-funded at the same rate as last year, according to Shapiro’s plan.

All of that displeased school choice advocates, like the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, which has pressured Shapiro to adopt a state-funded private school voucher program.

The budget proposal “notably lacked funding for [Shapiro’s] distant bipartisan campaign promises like educational choice—neither through Lifeline Scholarships nor tax credits,” said Andrew Lewis, president and CEO of the foundation, in a statement.

Correction: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect figure for the remaining adequacy gap for Philadelphia schools.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania’s poorest schools got an extra $500 million last year. Is more money on the way?

2025-01-14T15:43:03+00:00

HARRISBURG — Last summer, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a budget that acknowledged a roughly $4.5 billion “adequacy gap” to properly fund the commonwealth’s poorest schools, and pledged to fill it using state dollars.

They put about $500 million toward the goal in that budget. Now, as a new legislative session begins, funding advocates want to make sure officials don’t drag their feet to cover the rest.

Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director at the Education Law Center, said a delay could have real consequences.

“That’s another cohort of children missing out on access to the education they deserve,” she said.

Democrats, who control the state House and governorship, support continuing to boost funding for the commonwealth’s poorest schools, though haven’t made any specific commitments yet.

Republicans, who control the state Senate, signed off on the acknowledgment of the funding gap in the most recent budget. Still, they’ve been more circumspect about additional large investments, with leaders emphasizing that they need to make sure what’s already been spent is helping.

Intense conversations over school funding began in 2023, when a state court ruled that Pennsylvania’s spending on public education was inequitable — so much so that it violated the state constitution. Specifically, the judge found that students in poorer districts, which don’t have the resources to raise as much money through property taxes, weren’t serving students well enough.

That suit was brought against the state by a group of parents, administrators, and advocacy groups, including the Education Law Center.

For much of 2023 and 2024, lawmakers held hearings and negotiated on how exactly to quantify the funding shortfall.

A commission convened to study the issue eventually came up with the concept of an “adequacy target” — the bar at which a district can serve students at an acceptable level.

This measure sets a baseline amount of per-student spending, then adds in additional spending based on a district’s student body and factors like poverty and level of English proficiency. If a district spends less than the resulting number, it is missing its adequacy target and has an “adequacy gap,” the report said.

The budget lawmakers passed for the 2024-25 fiscal year acknowledged an adequacy gap that was a bit smaller than the one the commission identified, but advocates still saw it as a victory.

However, the budget didn’t make concrete commitments for future funding. That makes people like Klehr nervous.

“Schools need to make these long-delayed improvements to student instruction and essential services soon, and not wait 10 more years,” she said. A concrete schedule for additional money would allow schools “to plan, and hire the teachers they need to hire, and create the programs they need to create.”

The roughly $500 million that went toward the adequacy gap wasn’t the only education spending included in last year’s budget. Other line items included money for special education, mental health, and physical safety in schools. All told, education-related spending went up by about $1 billion.

State Rep. Pete Schweyer, a Democrat who chairs the House Education Committee, said as far as he’s concerned, the process should be repeated this year.

“Last year’s budget was, as I interpret it, year one of a multiyear increase in funding for the most at-risk school districts,” he said.

If there hadn’t been a broad acknowledgment that more funding would follow, Schweyer added, he would have expected school funding advocates to “head right back into court.”

State Senate leaders, however, indicated they’ll have some questions before signing off on more public education funding.

In a statement, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, said, “The adequacy dollars invested last year must be reviewed, to understand how schools utilized those investments and determine how we can best provide future support.”

The upper chamber also intends to focus on “truancy prevention measures, to make sure children are attending school and embracing the offerings of their learning environments,” he added.

Pittman also noted the upper chamber’s commitment to “empowering parents when it comes to the education and well-being of their children,” a likely reference to programs like the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, which provides state money to businesses that fund scholarships to private schools. The program is a GOP priority — and is also supported by a number of Democrats — and grows annually.

Elizabeth Rementer, a spokesperson for House Democratic leaders, echoed Schweyer and indicated that her caucus plans to stay the course.

“Last year’s budget clearly laid out the adequacy shortfall and our multiyear plan to finally fulfill our constitutional obligation to fund our schools,” she wrote in an email. “We look forward to the governor’s budget address.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, will lay out his vision for next year’s budget in early February.

Some families of modest means are being priced out of Pennsylvania’s child care subsidy

2024-12-19T17:38:03+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2024 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free newsletter here.

Lauren Burnley loves her job at Children’s Village in Chinatown tending to some of the 400 children, including many preschoolers, who are enrolled in the bustling day-care center. The job doesn’t come with a huge salary, but it pays the bills.

And one of those bills is what she gives right back to the center for the care of her own child, 8-year-old Julian.

Burnley used to get some assistance through the state’s subsidy program intended to help low- and moderate income families like hers with child care and after-school expenses. But when her salary increased three years ago to $50,000 a year, Burnley ran into a problem: Families with one child that earned more than $40,440 annually no longer qualified for that subsidy. So she lost it.

Now, she pays 18% of her salary for child care, a figure that will rise to 20% in January — nearly three times the maximum the Biden administration says that people should pay for child care.

At one time, Burnley was receiving $177 a month from the subsidy. To add insult to injury, she lost it in the middle of a pay period and had to pay the money back, she said.

Her parents are able to help her make ends meet, but the change still cost her: “I had to end up paying out of pocket. It’s a lot of money being a single parent.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro and the state legislature have touted their addition of $62 million more funds this fiscal year into the subsidy program known as Child Care Works.

With a new state budget process beginning in January, advocates and child care providers are calling on the legislature to do even more to help families afford child care. Some providers want Pennsylvania to adjust the eligibility guidelines for subsidies, allow child care workers to access them regardless of income. The advocacy campaign Start Strong PA, wants to inject $284 million more into the program to address an acute teacher shortage.

Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, cited data showing that while in July 2019 there were 108,000 children in the state receiving subsidized care, just 90,500 receive it now.

“We can’t say for certain that rising incomes are associated with fewer families receiving the subsidy because there is no way to prove that,” Cooper said, “But it is a reasonable explanation because given the extraordinarily low unemployment rates, we should have more than 90,500.”

The state’s Child Care Works program, funded by the state and federal government, reduces child care costs for families based on income and the number of children who need care.

A spokesperson for the Department of Human Services, which administers Child Care Works, said that Shapiro worked with the General Assembly starting in the 2023-24 fiscal year to extend state support. Most significantly, they increased the eligibility limit for people currently in the child care system from 200% to 300% of poverty.

According to federal guidelines for this year, 200% of poverty translates to $40,440 for a parent with one child and goes up to $105,440 for a family of eight. For a family of two, 300% of poverty amounts to just more than $61,000.

That change “is designed to ease a potential cliff effect of losing assistance as a household’s income increases. … Governor Shapiro understands how critical child care is for our families and Pennsylvania’s economy as a whole,” the DHS statement said.

But advocates and providers say that step doesn’t go far enough because it applies only to those already receiving subsidies. For new applicants, the income cap is still 200% of the poverty level.

Burnley, for instance, lost her subsidy several years ago as her income creeped up beyond the 200% figure, before the limit was raised. Now, she makes too much to reapply, even though her income is well below the 300% of poverty threshold for a family of two.

“It’s very inequitable,” said Mary Graham, the director of Children’s Village, where Burnley has worked for 16 years and where her son has been cared for since he was an infant. As things stand now in Pennsylvania, two families could have the same income and one could be eligible for a subsidy and one not, depending on when they accessed the system.

Under Pennsylvania’s program, parents apply to the subsidy manager, the Early Learning Resource Center and are notified if they are eligible, and for what amount. They then can go to any center that accepts the subsidies, and the money is sent directly to the center. The copay that the parent must give the center is based on their income and generally will range from $5 to $75 a week. There are also work and residency requirements to qualify for the subsidy.

Other states are doing more than Pennsylvania to expand eligibility for child care subsidies.

“In the grand scheme of things, the entry point would be 300% of poverty and people could stay on until they reached 400%,” Cooper said. “That would be ideal. Other states have done that.”

Pennsylvania differs from others on child care subsidies

Currently, Philadelphia providers say, parents have had to weigh whether getting a new job or accepting a raise is actually worth it, because a small change in income could price them out of subsidy eligibility.

Damaris Alvarado-Rodriguez runs Children’s Playhouse, which operates several centers in the city. She said that some of her workers have even told her, “be careful with the raises — I will lose my subsidy. I do have families, even teachers, that we have given them a $1 [an hour] raise, or even 50 cents, and their copays go up.”

Some states waive income guidelines altogether if the person works in child care, said Graham, the Children’s Village director, but Pennsylvania has not yet taken that step.

“People are paying more out of pocket because the public systems aren’t supported well enough for those who can’t afford it,” Cooper said. “If fewer families are eligible for the child care subsidy, the system then is eroding in terms of financial stability. This is dramatically affecting pre-K programs.”

Graham said another complication is that most new state and city revenue is targeted to preschool, not child care. Harrisburg has increased funding for children in Pre-K Counts and put more money into Head Start, which is primarily federally funded. And Philadelphia has made higher investments in PHLPre-K.

But the state has not regularly boosted funding for child care, which covers the 3, 4, and 5-year olds needing care for more than five hours a day, as well as costs for infants, toddlers, and after-school care.

“Reimbursement rates for child care, and funding for child care, has not increased as significantly,” Graham said, which results in higher costs for both the centers and for working parents like Burnley.

“Parents shouldn’t have to pay more than 7% of their wages” for child care, she said, citing the federal recommendation

While the costs of running child care programs are high, workers are simultaneously often paid such low salaries that many can make more money working in fast food or retail companies.

Alvarado-Rodgriguez said the current system is taking its toll on both the families and the providers.

“At the end of the day, our families are struggling,” she said. “They’re struggling in accessing subsidies.”

She and others hope these issues will be addressed in next year’s state budget, for which negotiations will start shortly after the new year.

Mai Micsik, the director of early childhood policy for Children First, said some policymakers have “a mindset that other people’s children are not their problem. That is what’s holding us back from innovative solutions to solve the child care crisis.”

The more children who get quality early care, she said, means “we all benefit.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A: Lessons learned from Philly’s school closures

2024-12-11T19:49:15+00:00

Next year, Philadelphia school leaders have warned their “rightsizing” process will likely result in more school shutdowns for a city that’s still recovering from the last painful spate of closures.

School buildings in Philly are on average 73 years old and are ridden with asbestos, lead, aging electrical systems, nonoperating bathrooms, and a host of other major issues. Demographic shifts have also meant several schools in the Northeast region of the city are bursting at the seams, while others stand nearly empty.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said reorganizing the district — and closing some buildings that are too costly to renovate — will allow resources to be spread more equally. But Watlington and city residents are haunted by the last school closure process in 2013, which negatively impacted students’ academic performance and mental health.

This time, district leaders have sworn, things will be different.

In light of the district’s promises, our partners over at Shelterforce spoke with Akira Drake Rodriguez, an assistant professor of city planning at the University of Pennsylvania, about how school closures in Philadelphia affect neighborhoods, what alternative visions could be for those schools, and how communities are starting to organize to change the way school facilities planning is done.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read the full interview here.

Shelterforce Editor-in-Chief Miriam Axel-Lute: Thank you for joining me, Akira, to talk about school closures and equity. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into studying this topic.

I started looking at public schools as infrastructure, whether it’s physical infrastructure or social infrastructure, in Philadelphia. We had this earlier experience in Philadelphia in 2013, where about 30 schools were closed. [I looked at] what changes to the neighborhood and the community and the built environment followed after the closures, and how to incorporate those lessons into future school facility planning processes.

You’ve said, “A good school is an open school.” Let’s look at a neighborhood and talk about what can happen when a school closes. I know you have some examples of some different ways that it happened in Philadelphia in the 2013 closures.

The 2013 closures were initiated through a private process. It could be framed as a planning process, but there was no community engagement or even a broad awareness that this was happening. The school district of Philadelphia engaged Boston Consulting Group to write a report on school facilities in the city. This looked at very technical data, such as what we call Facilities Conditions Index or FCI, which analyzes the systems of a school — plumbing, roof, electricity, etc. — estimates the condition of them, and then estimates the cost to get it into good condition.

If the cost of the repair is higher than its replacement, usually you’re going to remove that system. If enough systems need to be removed, then that translates into the closure of the school.

Another data point that they used was this idea of utilization. Philadelphia is a very old city. We had massive school construction at the turn of the 20th century and mid-century as the city is growing. It reached its peak of about 2 million residents in 1950.

We had high schools that were constructed for 2,000, 3,000 students that, by the time this planning process is happening, are serving literally 200 students. In addition to closures, a lot of the recommendations in the Boston Consulting Group report [were for] consolidation.

There were about 250 schools, and about 60 schools were [recommended] in this report for a closure or consolidation. The board, at the time, was a state-run board. The school district’s local control had been taken away by the state in 2001.

At that point, people are organizing to counteract these closures and consolidations. Some schools are saved, but are still what I consider to be vulnerable in future processes; others are closed or consolidated.

This caused some destabilization. One of the areas that was hardest hit was an area that’s on the border of one of our more affluent suburbs, the western part of our city, an area known as Overbrook, which borders Montgomery County, a very affluent county. Residents and organizers have actually done a school funding walk where they walk from Gompers Elementary in Philadelphia over to Lower Merion School. In that 1-mile walk, there is a disparity of basically 100 percent in additional funding for the suburban school student versus the one in Philadelphia.

That particular area saw a great deal of school closures and populations have continued to decline in those areas. North Philadelphia was also an area that was hard hit. Within a few years, you see the rise of school choice in these neighborhoods. A great deal of charters reappear in the wake of these closed schools.

I recall you telling me that in some of the different neighborhoods there were different effects on the housing market when their schools closed, some of them really deteriorating, some of them actually seeing some gentrification. Can you talk about the different kinds of things that might happen?

It’s funny, I’m at home right now. I live right across the street from a school that is closed. The house that I live in is my grandmother’s house that we moved into. I was actually supposed to go to this elementary school before my family moved out of Philadelphia. During 2013, this elementary, Smith Elementary, closed. The building has been converted into rental units, market rate. The playground and parking lot are about 12 single-family townhomes that average about $650,000. The house that was my grandmother’s house, [is] worth about $150,000, to give you some comparison.

There has been a lot of development in this area, which brings a lot of young couples that eventually become young families. There’s no school. This is happening further east in South Philadelphia with a school known as Southwark, which is a K-8 school.

Right across the street is a school known as Bok, which was a technical high school. It closed in 2013 and was repurposed into a bunch of different things — a maker space, a kiddie care center and gathering spot, a place that sells soccer equipment, a cafe, and at the top, a beautiful restaurant and bar.

This space has attracted a lot of families into the neighborhood. Southwark, which was never fully utilized, especially during the closures, but was not up for closure, is now overcrowded. Ironically, they lease the gym space from Bok because they don’t have room for all their activities.

In Overbrook, we see population decline and growth of school choice. In South Philly, we see a gentrification that’s happening as a result of the closure of this inefficient state good, the redevelopment of it into housing or to new uses, the attraction of a new type of resident and homeowner, and then the slow depopulation as families move away because they don’t have school options in this neighborhood.

Are there alternatives to closing underutilized schools that would preserve the public infrastructure for public good in a different way?

Sure. We had a public housing development in North Philadelphia that was demolished and redeveloped in a HOPE VI Choice Neighborhoods initiative approach. Part of that demolition included the closure of a local school. Then this school was actually purchased by the housing authority. They put a new school in. They hired teachers from the union. It’s effectively operating as a public school, drawing students from the neighborhood. Because the space was still so large, and the population was not utilizing that full space, they started leasing to other nonprofits that had connections to [the] school — after-school program for writers, different job training [programs], different public goods and services and advocacy groups. The results have been successful; they’ve been retaining teachers and students. You’re seeing above-average graduation rates and completion rates. This is how to adapt a public school and still keep it a public good.

Communities are going to change over time. We know that. It makes sense to adapt the public good in the public space to fit the community needs. That way you’re not having to lease auditorium and gymnasium space from private developers because you’ve sold your public good.

In contrast to the planning process in 2013 that led to all those school closures, Philadelphia has been working to embark on a different kind of school facilities planning process recently. Can you tell us about how that is going and how it’s different from what happened before?

Philadelphia schools were returned to local control in 2017. The school reform commission dissolved itself, and now we have a school board that is appointed by our mayor. This school board rightly understood that populations were still continuing to decline, and traditional public schools were underutilized and also in poor condition.

The planning process that began in 2019, when it was announced, said, “You can expect some closures and you can also expect some changes in our catchment areas, which determine, based on your address, where your local school is.”

Surprisingly, in 2019, the first reaction to this announcement was not from school organizers or teachers, but from real estate developers. The one or two really good K-8 schools in the city are highly advertised and signaled in real estate ads. The idea that some catchments would be redrawn was a little frightening for the real estate industry.

With this announcement, there was also the idea that there would be a public process. The consultants from the school district would form stakeholder groups by study areas, which were geographic areas containing about six or seven K-8 schools. They would produce some recommendations that would be presented to the public, adopted by the school board, and implemented in the following year. It was a pretty traditional planning process.

The study areas were very different from each other. For instance, that Overbrook area that I mentioned, where there were very few schools, and many were in bad shape and underutilized as a result of the previous closures. An area in North Philly that also had a lot of school closures, a rise in charter school options, but also a growing immigrant population, and new schools actually being constructed. And a third area in South Philadelphia, pretty close to our downtown, where populations were growing to the point where a new middle school was under discussion.

So we have one area where school closures are pretty imminent because we have a history of declining population; one area that’s growing, but is pretty marginalized within the city; and another area that is gentrified and growing, and needs new school options.

From the start, there was a lot of suspicion, obviously because of the legacy of school closures, which had really just happened six years before. If you’re a child whose school was closed in second grade, you’re in eighth grade now and facing possibly another closure. This isn’t a long time at all. People were a little upset about how the stakeholder groups were handpicked by principals. Elected officials and community planners dominated within these stakeholder groups.

Parents, teachers, and school advocates who were left out of the stakeholder groups took a few different approaches to improving the process. First, they pushed for stakeholders to hold community and public meetings to provide what they were learning to the public before the mass public meeting.

Second, communities that were not included in the first round of study areas were beginning to hold their own meetings and discuss the alternatives so they could prepare a counter-narrative when it was their turn in the facilities planning process.

Then a third group formed, drawing in a councilmember and three parent and neighborhood groups, which was focused on the idea of working across these study areas, instead of fighting about closures within a constrained geography — thinking about the resources we have across the city and how we can start to reallocate them more effectively.

Through this disruption of the school district’s planning process, we were able to insert some more participatory opportunities, such as expanding the number of meetings, and removing the idea of closures from the list of recommendations that were provided to stakeholder groups to start with.

This all sounds fairly similar to a lot of things that housing and community development groups get involved in, wanting to have more neighborhood input in a planning process.

Community quality of life was really centered in these discussions. I’m thinking about a group in the North Philadelphia, the high immigrant population area that I mentioned earlier. They were really concerned about school closures translating into gentrification. I felt that one of the most striking takeaways during these different meetings across the city was that people could draw a really straight line between a school closure and the construction of $400,000 townhomes in areas where that was not the median home value.

They saw this [process] as just a further coalition or growth machine that’s emerging between downtown and the school district. That was really a primary concern.

You also have concerns about segregation. There were parents — particularly in the growing neighborhood near the downtown, who didn’t like that there was a big racial divide across one street in Philadelphia — who said, “We’re going to build a middle school. Can we draw that catchment for the middle school across this racial divide so that we can have an integrated school and set that tone?”

These were discussions that were really thinking about “We have a lot of power in this conversation. How can we set a model for something that reflects the community’s needs?”

That makes a lot of sense. It also strikes me that they could maybe step into a conversation about school closure with some of those ideas you were talking about earlier, about other ways to use underutilized space.

Yes, the co-location is, I think, so critical. Key to why [the housing authority school is] so successful now was that thoughtfulness of “this is not just an asset to monetize and sell off to fulfill our bottom line . . . this is a key public good.”

One of the hardest things is breaking through to people who have no skin in the game of the public school. You really have to sell it as, like, “These are your tax dollars, this is what your tax dollars is going to support. You shouldn’t see a school closure as something that improves your property value. You should think about how can you improve the school and your property value at the same time.”

People don’t get upset when you close a public school, but they would get upset if you closed a public park. You have to think about them in the same way: you may not directly engage with it, but it serves a broader good and anchors your community.

This story was originally published by Shelterforce as part of their Under the Lens series, exploring the ways the educational justice and housing justice movements overlap. Sign up for their newsletter here. And if you prefer listening to the series, you can do so here.

Philly schools receive $16.7 million for bathroom, roof, other repairs at 7 buildings

2024-12-10T22:27:37+00:00

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Philadelphia schools are getting nearly $17 million from the state to repair and upgrade seven aging buildings, officials announced Tuesday.

The money will pay for everything from fixing bathrooms that don’t work to patching up roofs and auditoriums. It’s part of a statewide $175 million grant program in the 2024-25 state budget for school building upkeep, said state Sen. Vincent Hughes, one of the legislators who fought for the funding.

“Tangible action and financial investments like this signal to young people that they are important,” said Mayor Cherelle Parker at an event held at West Philadelphia’s Martha Washington Elementary School, which was built in 1929. “We can’t have students, teachers and administrators going into buildings with leaking roofs and unreliable bathrooms.”

The investment comes at a time when the district has embarked on a facilities planning process that officials warn could result in the closing of some school buildings, including those that are costly to maintain and under-enrolled — a description that fits Martha Washington, located on 44th street near Lancaster Avenue.

Current enrollment at Martha Washington is just over 200 students, in a building that takes up most of a city block.

Philadelphia’s share of the grant, $16.7 million, will fund eight renovation projects in seven schools, including Martha Washington. Several of the school’s 17 bathrooms are nonfunctioning, said Principal Lakeisha Patrick.

“This is an old building, but a gem in West Philadelphia,” she said, adding that staff and students “deserve a nice environment.”

But the $16.7 million represents a small fraction of the need in Philly: some estimates have put the total cost to repair and upgrade schools anywhere from $5 billion to nearly $10 billion.

State and local governments jointly fund schools’ operating costs along with the federal government. But state aid for capital expenditures like school construction and repair is a separate matter.

The state has a program called PlanCon designed to help school districts fix and modernize school buildings, Hughes said. But funding halted for that program in 2015, even though schools all over the state need help to meet 21st century needs, Hughes said. He described a visit he took with a colleague to a rural school in western Pennsylvania a few years ago that was built during Reconstruction, but is still in use.

“We went into the sub basement, and the backup generator was literally a car engine,” he said.

Students’ lack of access to working, clean, well-stocked bathrooms was also a key issue in Monday’s City Council hearing. Oz Hill, the district’s interim deputy superintendent of operations, told council members the district has eight plumbers servicing over 2,000 school bathrooms.

Other grants will go to bathroom renovations at George W. Childs, window replacements at James G. Blaine, and roof replacements at Cayuga and Francis Hopkinson elementary schools. Edison High School will get nearly $900,000 to upgrade the ventilation system in the culinary section of its career and technical education program.

Nearly half the amount, $8.3 million, will be used to repair the auditorium and the roof at Overbrook High.

In an interview after the event, Hughes acknowledged that the district is in the process of reevaluating its building needs on a path to rightsizing and efficiency. The state facilities grants program “in some respects is a bridge” to the more permanent plan, he said.

School officials on Monday held a virtual public meeting to emphasize the work it is doing to maximize the environmental safety of each school building.

Victoria Flemming, executive director of the district’s office of environmental management and services, and other officials explained how each school building is inspected twice a year, with every room and surface examined for hazards such as friable or loose asbestos, mold, and lead in paint and drinking water.

These inspections comply with the mandates of the federal Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, known as AHERA, Fleming said. They came up when Philadelphia had to close three schools in early 2023 due to damaged asbestos.

Room-by-room inspection reports for 297 school buildings, some of which run to hundreds of pages, are available for the public to access both online and in paper copies at school offices.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia is now spending over $100 million on its curriculum overhaul. Here’s a breakdown.

2024-12-06T17:46:32+00:00

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Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington’s ambitious new curriculum overhaul could turn out to be one of his most lasting impacts on the district.

With the school board’s approval of an additional $25 million for math manipulative tools this week, what started as a $70 million initiative to standardize and improve Philly schools’ teaching resources has now grown to over $100 million — mostly paid through federal COVID relief.

According to district data, the money is being split between some six vendors and will cover resources for teachers and students through the 2027-28 school year.

Watlington has said giving students a “state-of-the-art, best-in-class” curriculum that’s consistent across city schools is a crucial and urgent part of his five-year strategic plan to improve students’ learning conditions.

Alongside the curriculum remodel, the school district is also forging ahead with a facilities planning process to “rightsize” the district’s school building stock, reconfigure schools that are overenrolled and underenrolled, and potentially close some buildings in the coming years.

“We’re taking the time to do this thoughtfully, in a way that we support all of our communities, and in a way that we can be proud of,” Watlington said in an interview with Chalkbeat this week about the facilities process. “When you have a school of a certain size, you can take existing resources” and stretch them to reach more students, Watlington said.

The most recent state test score results show student achievement has been improving incrementally. However, the district reported to the school board this week “as that was just year 1 of implementation [of the new math curriculum materials], we expect greater gains in the coming years.”

Some teachers have also expressed frustration with the curriculum rollout, telling Chalkbeat they didn’t feel they received adequate training and that the strict requirements can leave little room for personalization.

According to the district, other teachers in focus groups it has hosted have responded positively to the new math curriculum in particular, saying it increased “student engagement, confidence, and collaboration.”

The $25 million in new money approved by the board Thursday is the first to come from district operating aid rather than the COVID relief spending — the majority of which expired last September.

Here’s a breakdown of how the new curriculum spending is being distributed:

Math Core Instructional Materials for school years 2023-24 to 2027-28

Vendor: Imagine Learning - Illustrative Math, $45 million

English Language Arts Core Instructional Materials for school years 2024-25 to 2025-26

Vendor: Expeditionary Learning/Imagine Learning, $20 million
Vendor: McGraw-Hill StudySync, $4.2 million

Science Core Instructional Materials for school years 2025-26 to 2027-28

Vendor: Amplify Education, $20 million
Vendor: Kendall Hunt, $3.7 million
Vendor: SAVVAS, $7.9 million

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school board approves $25 million for new math resources, elects leadership

2024-12-06T00:12:36+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to spend an additional $25 million to support the district’s new math curriculum at their last action meeting of 2024.

Philadelphia schools are in the midst of an overhaul to their math, English, and science curriculums in an attempt to catch students up after the COVID pandemic and deliver on Superintendent Tony Watlington’s commitment to make Philly the “fastest improving, large urban district in the nation.”

Some educators have said the new curriculum rollout has been a tough adjustment, in part because some of the lessons demand physical tools or manipulatives that teachers have said they’ve had to purchase or source on their own.

The new money approved by the board Thursday will cover “consumable materials” like blocks and other tools for all K-12 schools through June 2028, according to the district.

Watlington said Thursday the district is already seeing some promising — but incremental — early returns for students in the form of rising test scores for some student groups and a declining number of dropouts.

The board also unanimously voted to re-elect Reginald Streater as president and elect board member Sarah-Ashley Andrews as vice president. Andrews will replace former vice president Wanda Novalés, who will remain on the board.

“We started great work together and there’s a lot of work to do ahead,” Novalés said Thursday. “Although my term is ending, my dedication remains strong.”

During the public comment section of the meeting, several community members raised issues with the ongoing principal search at Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), a specialized college preparatory school for students in grades 5-12.

A group of parents started circulating a petition last month claiming the district has not been adequately communicating with the GAMP community about the search since the “abrupt departure” of former Principal Jovan Moore in 2023. Speakers said the job posting has been vague, and that the posted requirements are insufficient for GAMP’s unique needs as a music school that educates both middle and high school students.

“The word music is not even mentioned in the job posting … it seems that the school district is just phoning in this entire effort,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, a GAMP parent and vice president of the school’s Home and School Association.

Ott Lovell said she believes the process at GAMP is not an isolated incident, but is “emblematic of a weak recruitment and hiring process for principals system-wide.”

“We’ll be sure to review this,” Watlington said in response to the speakers.

Public speakers also continued calls for the board to reinstate Northeast High School social studies teacher Keziah Ridgeway, who was suspended following a complaint from the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

The complaint accused Ridgeway of antisemitism for her public criticism of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza and of making a threat of violence. The federation cited a social media post from Ridgeway that included an emoji of a gun.

According to a petition circulating in support of Ridgeway, “students have dropped out of her classes” and “every day more damage is done.”

Several public speakers — including Ridgeway’s adoptive mother Suad Malik — reiterated the negative impact that Ridgeway’s reassignment has had on the Northeast High community.

“You have separated an important teacher from an important child,” Folk Arts – Cultural Treasures Charter School teacher Lily Cavanaugh said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philly schools traumatized by opioid crisis use settlement money to remind kids ‘they’re special’

2024-12-05T11:00:00+00:00

This story was reported in partnership with Kensington Voice and made possible by the Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative.

Kensington’s Willard Elementary School is getting its first playground. It’s also getting something less whimsical: a bullet-resistant fence.

Both have an unusual funding source: drug companies that fueled the opioid crisis in the school’s backyard.

Willard Principal Diana Garcia said that every child across Philadelphia should get 30 minutes of play time outside. But students in Kensington miss out. The neighborhood lacks safe, green spaces. Instead, face-to-face with the city’s opioid crisis in one of its most impoverished neighborhoods, students are surrounded by gun violence, drug use, trash, and used needles.

Garcia has a blunt way of putting the situation: Kids in Kensington “don’t have basic human rights.” But the play space will help “students feel safe, reminding them that they are kids, that they’re special,” she said.

The crisis that schools in the neighborhood are enduring and trying to redress is traumatizing students. As drugs have ravaged the community, many families have chosen to send their kids to schools outside the neighborhood.

Enrollment in the district as a whole has dropped by about 16% since 2013. But the fall has been even more steep in Kensington schools: Enrollment at Russell Conwell Middle School, for example, fell by 80% from 2014 to 2023. Willard’s enrollment has dropped by half.

Staff and students leave Frances E. Willard Elementary School after dismissal.

Six schools in Kensington are purchasing a variety of improvements using money from multiple lawsuits filed by state and local governments against drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in generating the opioid crisis. They’re using the money to pay for safety fencing, a new fitness center, playground updates, a bilingual climate specialist, and more. The school leaders hope these changes will provide more secure and beautiful environments for students who have had to endure so much. They also hope the money will help students succeed in school and beyond.

These Kensington schools are receiving about $333,000 each out of the $20 million that Philadelphia received in 2023. In addition to Willard and Conwell, the schools receiving this funding are Gloria Casarez Elementary School, Lewis Elkin Elementary School, Jules E. Mastbaum High School, and John H. Webster Elementary School.

All six schools enroll mostly Black and Latino students, and 100% of students at these schools are economically disadvantaged.

An initial vote this summer by a state trust overseeing how local governments use opioid settlement dollars said the plan for money earmarked for Kensington schools didn’t comply with national guidelines.

Philadelphia officials defended the plan during an October hearing. Keli McLoyd, director of Philadelphia’s Overdose Response Unit, argued that Kensington children are particularly vulnerable to the risk of opioid use and overdose.

State Sen. Greg Rothman, a Republican who is on the state trust, voted against the Kensington school spending in the summer. But after touring the neighborhood, he said he felt differently.

“If you had asked me this morning how many kids live in Kensington, I would’ve said, ‘There are no kids in Kensington,’” he said. “I just saw [a school] a half a block from where we were walking.”

Ultimately, the state officials reversed course and agreed to the spending on schools. Still, school principals in Kensington say the funding is a drop in the bucket for what students need.

“The kids in this neighborhood deserve every penny that comes their way to make anything better for their lives,” Garcia said. “I don’t know if the folks who make decisions understand what our five to nine year olds have to endure just to make it to school.”

Schools want families to be safer in Kensington

After gathering input from parents, students, and educators, and feasibility studies by the school district, each school devised individual spending plans.

Awilda Balbuena, the principal of Gloria Casarez Elementary, said because the opioid settlement money represented one-time aid, they had to spend on items that don’t require ongoing funding.

Garcia said her number one priority was increasing safety.

In addition to a new playground, Willard is using a large chunk of the settlement money on a new fencing made from material resistant to bullets and high enough to deter trespassing and encampments.

The new fencing, Garcia said, will help make families feel safer “and that’ll help relieve some burdens and some trauma, that will allow them to learn better.”

Casarez Elementary is expanding its playground, replacing cement with AstroTurf, and planting trees in its school yard. It’s also getting a cover over its play structure to protect kids from the rain. The trees and seating underneath will offer respite in a school yard with no shade, said Balbuena.

Balbuena said her families say they don’t go to the nearest park, McVeigh Recreation Center, out of safety concerns. And whenever she asks for feedback from her families, they say, “‘We need a bigger schoolyard. Our kids need a place to play,’” Balbuena said.

Witnessing the schoolyard expand, Balbuena said, “They can feel that their voices were heard. That’s empowering.”

Casarez is also building a sensory wellness room — a space designed to calm kids who are exposed to trauma and chronic stress and students with sensory needs like those with ADHD and autism.

While Balbuena expressed gratitude for the funding, she said it’s not enough.

“I hope no one thinks for one minute that the $2 million that was awarded to the six schools is going to, for one minute, erase what our kids have seen during this opioid epidemic,” Balbuena said. “This is a band aid to an open chest wound.”

Vivian Virola-Romero, the new climate specialist, left, and Principal Sherri Arabia in the office at John H. Webster School.

At Webster Elementary, Principal Sherri Arabia has myriad plans for the settlement money.

Most of the school’s opioid settlement funds is paying for a bilingual climate specialist for the next two years. The role was filled by a climate support staff member, Vivian Virola-Romero, who already has relationships with several parents.

The climate specialist’s overarching goal is to get more parents involved at the school. That includes pulling in more parent volunteers to be in the school building and to act as crossing guards, increasing use of the family resource room, and increasing the 20% attendance rate for back to school night, according to Arabia.

In addition, Virola-Romero will organize so-called “walking buses” — parents that escort groups of students to school and back.

The settlement dollars will turn into gift cards for parents to serve as stipends for helping out. That strategy worked before the pandemic, according to Arabia.

“We’ve been trying to get volunteers, and we have nothing to offer them to volunteer at our school,” she said.

It’s hard to get parents in the building, Arabia said, because “they’re working. A lot of children get picked up by babysitters, grandparents.”

Students head home from Frances E. Willard Elementary School after dismissal.

But Arabia has high hopes for Virola-Romero, who will greet parents as they walk in the building and show them what the school has to offer.

Webster is also using the opioid funds for a Saturday school program. Like the other principals, Arabia said the intent is to give students safe spaces, help them learn a bit more, and “making sure our students are safe and loved,” Arabia said.

Arabia said her plan is to keep the climate specialist position beyond the two years that will be paid for using the opioid settlement money. But it depends on the school’s budget.

Vivian Virola-Romero, the new climate specialist, poses in her office at John H. Webster School.

Money will help students discover careers, healthy habits

Mastbaum High School used to enroll more kids from other parts of the city. No longer.

“We just kind of slipped out of mind with a lot of the community,” Said David Lon, Mastbaum principal.

Mastbaum is funding a new drum line for students. It’s also building a new fitness center in its old locker room. The previous fitness center is full of broken gym equipment. Lon said students need more spaces where they can practice healthy habits.

Mastbaum has also hired three staff members for three years through the Kensington nonprofit 12PLUS. They will help students get jobs, apply to college and financial aid, and provide mentorship for two years after they graduate.

Principal David Lon discusses plans for opioid settlement funding at Jules E. Mastbaum High School's current locker room, which will be transformed into a new fitness center.

The 12PLUS staff will provide the logistical support that many families need, Lon said.

It’s difficult just to get students to graduate, and then Mastbaum mostly loses touch with them once they do, Lon said. So hiring the new staff members is like an “investment in their future.”

“To be able to place a student upon graduation into the Navy shipyard, and right off the bat, they’re making $30 an hour, on a pathway to ... a six-figure salary,” Lon said. “This will be an intensive layer of support to ensure that they are getting critical scaffolds to reach those dreams that they have.”

Overall Lon said his plan for the opioid dollars was aligned with “the spirit of recovery.”

“That’s the spirit of providing beautiful utility to students that walk through a community where many aspects of beauty have been stripped out of it,” Lon said. “And is it all of the money that we would maybe deserve in an ideal universe? Probably not, but it’s a start, and we’re thankful for that start.”

This story has been updated to clarify that the funding was the result of multiple lawsuits by state and local governments.

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Khalid Mumin is stepping down

2024-11-22T20:33:36+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Khalid Mumin will resign from his position in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s cabinet next month, the governor’s office announced Friday afternoon.

Mumin was confirmed in June 2023 about six months after Shapiro took office and has presided over some of the administration’s early successes such as increasing funding for K-12 public schools by $1.5 billion over the last two budgets and providing free breakfast for 1.7 million public school students.

Mumin will resign Dec. 6 and Executive Deputy Secretary of Education Angela Fitterer will take over as interim secretary. A statement from Shapiro’s office did not say why Mumin is stepping down.

Shapiro said in a statement that Mumin has dedicated his life and career to ensuring that Pennsylvania children have a quality education that sets them up for success.

“He has led the Pennsylvania Department of Education with passion and integrity. I am grateful for his service to Pennsylvania’s students and educators and wish him great success in his future endeavors,” Shapiro said.

Mumin said it has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as education secretary.

“I began my career as a teacher in a classroom, and those early experiences watching students get excited about learning inspired me to become a principal, a superintendent, and ultimately Secretary of Education, so I could continue to fight for those students to get more support and more opportunities,” Mumin said. “I’m so grateful to Governor Shapiro for this opportunity to lead the Pennsylvania Department of Education and help build a bright future for Pennsylvania’s students and educators.”

State Sen. David Argall (R-Schuylkill), chairman of the Legislature’s education committee, said he wished Mumin the best and added, “I look forward to working with Acting Secretary Fitterer and the governor’s nominee to improve our education system, from Pre-K to graduate school.”

Before Shapiro tapped Mumin for his cabinet, he served as superintendent of the Lower Merion school district in Montgomery County. Mumin, who began his career as a classroom teacher in the Franklin County community of Scotland in 1997, also has served as superintendent of the Reading public schools.

Mumin’s tenure coincided with the resolution of a decade of litigation over the state’s public education funding formula, which a group of school districts, parents and advocates argued put students in less wealthy areas at a disadvantage because of its reliance on property taxes.

A Commonwealth Court judge ordered Shapiro and the General Assembly in February 2023 to correct the inequities and a interbranch commission found the state needed to invest $5.4 billion in underfunded schools to bring them up to par with the state’s most successful school districts.

This year’s budget includes about $526 million toward that goal, but lawmakers were unable to reach a compromise that would guarantee future installments to close the gap.

Shapiro also touted the education department’s success in strengthening career and technical education programs, investments in student mental health, repairs for schools and providing free menstrual products for students.

The governor’s office also credited Mumin with bringing together higher education leaders together to rethink higher education in Pennsylvania, establishing a state Board of Higher Education to provide more support for public universities and make college education more affordable.

Philadelphia school board vote clears way for city council action on 76ers arena plan

2024-11-22T02:02:12+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education took the city’s first step Thursday night in a controversial process to build a new $1.3 billion basketball arena for the Philadelphia 76ers.

By a vote of 7-2, the board voted to approve an agreement that would remove the plot of land proposed for the arena from an already existing tax incentive designation. This vote clears the first hurdle in the arena-building process, even as advocates and opponents continue to pack City Council hearings raising questions and concerns. The agreement now moves to the City Council for consideration.

The board went ahead with the vote despite member ChauWing Lam urging a delay so members could fully consider the implications. She and Board Vice President Wanda Novales opposed the resolution.

“I don’t believe the benefits presented sufficiently consider the needs of our students,” Novales said. “I feel that we need to advocate for a more comprehensive approach to the community investment and student support.”

After the vote, several people in the audience shouted out, calling the board members “cowards.”

“Shame on you,” members of the public cried.

The vote does not seal the arena’s fate. If the City Council ultimately votes down the proposal in the face of mounting opposition, the board’s action on Thursday would be moot.

According to state law, the school board is required to vote on the designation before the council holds a public hearing on the same resolution.

If the arena proposal moves forward as the 76ers and Mayor Cherelle Parker intend, the team would avoid paying property taxes on the new arena altogether. Instead, they’d make annual direct payments in lieu of taxes to the city and school district — in amounts far less than what they would have paid in property taxes.

This is what is done now for the owners of the other sports facilities in South Philadelphia, including Lincoln Financial Field (where the Eagles football team plays) and Citizens Bank Park (home field of the Phillies baseball team).

In addition, as part of a separate agreement, the 76ers say they will fund several community programs, including part of Parker’s year-round school initiative.

The 76ers have negotiated “a sweetheart proposal that guarantees them a state-of-the-art facility at the expense of Philadelphia’s children,” said Lisa Li of the advocacy group Asian Americans United, which opposes the arena plan.

School board members sought to make it clear Thursday that they were not voting to approve the arena, but to remove the proposed arena land from an existing Tax Increment Financing (or TIF) district designation. TIFs are commonly used by states and localities to incentivize local economic development programs.

“The decision about whether to approve the development of the arena is entirely City Council’s. It is not our decision,” board member Joan Stern said.

But several speakers felt differently, with one characterizing the resolution as “giving the green light” to what a few called the “destructive” arena and urging the board to vote it down.

In a presentation before the board, Sam Rhoads, executive vice president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, said that the board’s action “is in no way a vote for or against the arena.” He and city finance director Rob Dubow explained that the district would receive $2.8 million in the first year of payments in lieu of taxes compared to $550,000 paid now in property taxes from businesses on the site.

The proposal to build a new 76ers basketball arena at 10th and Market Street in Center City has polarized the city. Proponents — including Parker, who appointed or reappointed every member of the school board — argue it will create thousands of union construction jobs and economically reinvigorate that section of downtown. It also would provide a place for student graduations, high school basketball games, and other events including theatrical productions and musical concerts.

But critics of the arena plan, including all major neighborhood groups that border the proposed site, claim the arena would devastate the vulnerable nearby Chinatown community and lead to dangerous traffic patterns, in addition to depriving the school district of much-needed tax revenue at a time when it is considering closing schools.

Arena proponents say the district will benefit from the deal, but critics say the math doesn’t add up

A key part of the arena proposal is the Community Benefits Agreement that, over three decades, will contribute $50 million for programs, including $7 million for extended-day, extended-year schooling, Parker’s signature education initiative; $1 million in internships; $1.5 million for youth basketball leagues; and $3 million in free game tickets allocated to the School District of Philadelphia.

Arena supporters say that activities in and around the facility will increase overall tax revenue to the district and city from the PILOTs and Use and Occupancy tax revenue, and the liquor-by-the-drink tax, which is allocated to the district. Over the 30 years of the agreement, the city is projecting the school district will receive $153 million in revenue from the arena.

But arena opponents argue that since schools are much more dependent on property taxes than the city, district leadership could have lobbied for more money.

City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, who opposes the arena plan, called the community benefits deal “a bad agreement,” in a statement to Chalkbeat.

Brooks said even as the district is preparing to close schools, “our city is being sold out by this proposal.”

Brooks called the arrangement a “$400 million tax break” over the next 30 years. This is also not the first controversial tax break program the board of education has approved that ultimately reduces the amount of tax money the district receives in an effort to spur development. The board has no taxing power of its own and must rely on City Council and the mayor for its share of city tax dollars.

According to calculations by tax experts and academics working with a coalition of advocacy groups who oppose the arena plan, the 76ers would have contributed $400 million to the school district over the next 30 years if they paid regular property taxes on the arena. Under the current arena proposal, they say the 76ers would instead pay $50 million to the district as a PILOT.

Some of those same tax experts told Chalkbeat the 76ers’ projections for the cost of construction and their projected revenues are hard to parse and could end up costing the city $1 billion.

“The numbers that the 76ers and their consultants have presented are just fiction,” said Domenic Vitiello, an associate professor of city and regional planning at The University of Pennsylvania. He said the city should seek “real numbers” before approving a plan that reduces the amount of taxes paid to the school district.

Some speakers agreed. “Tonight’s presentation from the city was opaque at best,” Philly teacher George Dougherty testified to the board Thursday. A vote for the measure “is for billionaires and against our students,” Dougherty said.

Community activists say the arena proposal would negatively impact the school district

A group of Philadelphia public school parents are also circulating a petition opposing the arena because of the impact they say it will have on families.

“At a time when several of our Philadelphia district schools are in danger of closure, and many are in need of significant repairs, such as electrical upgrades, air conditioning, and asbestos removal, it is irresponsible and immoral for our city government to consider what amounts to a $1 billion tax break to 3 billionaires who do not even live in Philadelphia,” the petition reads, referring to the 76ers owners.

City Council members are considering nearly a dozen pieces of legislation regarding the arena project in the coming weeks. Now that the board voted to approve the TIF agreement, Council will continue its public hearings through Dec. 3, with a final meeting scheduled for Dec. 12.

If the proposal is approved, demolition for the arena is projected to start in 2026 with construction slated to begin in 2028.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philly school closures to be shaped by community voices, district says

2024-11-14T20:02:45+00:00

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At community meetings across the city, the School District of Philadelphia is warning families that school closures are coming, but unlike the last time the district closed schools, officials say this time, they want parents, students, and neighbors to help shape the decision-making from the beginning.

“We first and foremost have learned that there has to be increased community engagement,” said Oz Hill, the district’s deputy superintendent of operations, at the first facilities planning meeting on Nov. 4 in Northeast Philly. “We didn’t do that well the last time, and we’re not going to make that same mistake going forward.”

Philadelphia, along with other public school districts across the country, is confronting declining enrollments, a persistent teacher shortage, the rise of cyber charter schools, and a shrinking birth rate. As a result, Philly has many underutilized or half-empty school buildings that are costly to upkeep and renovate. And those buildings are on average 73 years old — riddled with environmental hazards like asbestos and lead, and many lack adequate heating and cooling.

The district says consolidation, colocation, and a reimagining of the school system is necessary to improve student academic achievement and keep the district’s fiscal and infrastructural house in order.

Philadelphia’s public schools have classroom space for 180,000 students and currently serve 116,000 students, according to district data. Charter-operated schools in district-owned buildings have classroom space for 19,801 students and currently serve 14,387 students, the district said.

But closing schools is nasty business. Recent studies have found persistent negative effects from school closures, something district officials readily acknowledge happened in Philly in 2013 when the district closed 23 schools.

“It was not worth the cost,” Hill told families at a meeting Nov. 13 at Finley Recreation Center in East Germantown. “The students that were displaced … their performance declined. The students who were in schools where those displaced students were reassigned, their performance declined. Absences increased.”

This time, Hill said, “rightsizing” the district is less about saving money and more about ensuring students are in environmentally safe and comfortable classrooms with credentialed teachers.

The district has held nine sessions already and plans to hold 30 in total. For a list of the upcoming meetings and how you can participate, check out the district’s website. You can see the district’s full presentation here.

The meetings are being organized and hosted by representatives from the consulting group Brownstone PR, which the district has contracted with for $179,500.

Here are some takeaways:

There’s no list of targeted schools yet. The district says these community meetings are the first step to determine the criteria by which schools will be identified for possible closure, colocation, or reuse. Hill said the district will be looking at the condition of school buildings, their enrollment trends, and other factors. He said he wants Philadelphia parents, students, and community members to help shape what those final criteria will be.
A draft plan will be released next year. When the district releases a draft facilities plan with a list of schools identified for closure — likely in August or September of 2025 — there will be a window for community response before the next phase. Public feedback on the list will happen in October and November of 2025 and the district intends to finalize the plan by November or early December 2025.
The district is haunted by the school closure process in 2012-13. District officials have sworn not to repeat the meetings of the past, which saw thousands of angry students, parents, and community members railing against district representatives for closing their schools in pursuit of financial savings. In the decade since, Hill says the district has saved $24 million annually from those closures but this time, the motivation is not to save money — it’s to improve conditions for student learning.
People are not packing the rooms. The quantity of meetings (both in-person and virtual) means more opportunities to attend, but at several of the meetings Chalkbeat has observed, there have been fewer than five parents in attendance. At least one meeting was very well-attended, when several principals from Northeast Philly spoke passionately about overcrowding issues at their schools. According to Megan Smith, founder of Brownstone PR, there have been 134 participants at the nine meetings so far.
Closed schools will be used for community purposes. Hill said any schools closed as a result of this process won’t be sold off “for mere pennies on the dollar.” Hill said the district will “repurpose our schools for the benefit of our communities.” The buildings might be put to use as community centers, recreation centers, or other public gathering spaces.

The parents and teachers that have attended these meetings have raised several issues they want the district to consider. Rhawnhurst parent Melanie Silva wanted to know what’s going to happen to current renovation or construction projects. Hill said those will continue as planned. Martin Luther King High School educator Cheryl Jones said she believes it’s important to keep students in their local neighborhoods and asked that the district consider the role schools like King play as a community hub. Hill said he understands that perspective and reassured Jones that he sees King as a viable long-term option.

Other parents raised issues with violence in schools and asked for consideration about more school safety measures, improved athletics facilities and programs, funding for extracurriculars, places for young students to play, and more.

Parent Saterria Kersey said the district should also improve its communication efforts.

Hill told Chalkbeat that after speaking with families at these meetings, he’s learned a lot. Above all, he said, the one thing he would like to see at future meetings “is mass participation. I would want every parent in the district, every parent that has a student in the district, to be part of a forum.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to include the number of meetings held so far and to clarify the amount contracted for community engagement.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia students walk out of classrooms to protest 2024 election results

2024-11-08T21:40:29+00:00

Dozens of Philadelphia students walked out of their classrooms Friday protesting the 2024 presidential election results and the impact President-elect Donald Trump could have on climate change policies.

Still, they said, the people have spoken.

“We are not trying to overturn an election. We are not storming the Capitol, but we are saying that our rights matter,” said Clara Hensley, 17, a senior at Science Leadership Academy. “We are saying that we deserve to have safe schools. We deserve to have a future. Because there’s only six years left to solve a climate crisis before it gets too far.”

The walkout was part of a national effort organized by the Sunrise Movement — an advocacy group that promotes policies to slow climate change — and led by local student activists.

Young people in deep blue Philly have been grappling with President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive win in Pennsylvania and what it will mean for the next four years.

Aster Chau, 16, from the Academy at Palumbo organized her classmates to walk out on Friday.

“We are not alone. Across the nation, there are other schools who just walked out with you and are taking action. We are scared for our futures, and today, it’s about uplifting the youth,” Chau said, speaking to her friends and classmates at City Hall. “We will create power and use this moment of fear, uncertainty, anger, and all of it to channel momentum.”

Chau said she and her peers are looking specifically at Trump’s education policies and how they will impact her school.

“Our schools are already underfunded and suffering and our extracurricular activities don’t get enough funding anymore,” she told Chalkbeat.

Trump and his campaign surrogates have made sweeping pledges to change the nation’s educational systems including dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, expanding school choice, rolling back some protections for LGBTQ students, and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

Students on Friday told Chalkbeat they were walking out of their classes in protest of Trump’s statements about abortion and reproductive care, as well as his immigration stances that some students said threaten their families and communities.

Though they rallied and organized their peers ahead of the election, youth voter turnout nationally was lower in 2024 than it was in 2020 overall, according to data analysis from the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

In Pennsylvania, voters ages 18-29 preferred Harris (54%) over Trump (45%) according to CIRCLE data.

Academy at Palumbo students Chaya Ackelsberg, 15, and Xavier Ray, 17, walked out of their classrooms in protest on Friday.

Chau said whatever the outcome, she and her peers will continue to advocate for causes they believe in.

“Youth will always build power, and we will always fight for the changes we want to see,” Chau said. “Regardless of the results of the election, we’re going to keep fighting, and we’re going to keep our hopes up, because that’s what’s keeping us going.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school district extends funding for students experiencing homelessness

2024-10-29T17:36:38+00:00

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Funding to provide services for Philadelphia students experiencing homelessness was set to run out with the expiration of federal pandemic relief aid. But school and city leaders say they’re using district funds to extend those services for another year.

The district will replace the sunsetting American Rescue Plan money with $2.3 million in district funds for youth homeless services through June 2025, Superintendent Tony Watlington and City Council Education Chair Isiah Thomas announced Tuesday.

Without this money, Thomas said many of the nonprofit community groups that had been providing resources to vulnerable young people in partnership with the district were preparing to shut down, even as the number of vulnerable young people struggling to find housing is increasing.

“Today what we’re doing is just taking a small victory lap because we were able to avoid a crisis,” Thomas said at a City Hall press conference. “The work continues.”

The money will come from the school district’s operating budget. The district will distribute it to three community groups dedicated to supporting young people experiencing housing insecurity: Valley Youth House, HopePHL, and Eddie’s House.

The most recent data shows that 6,217 students were considered homeless in the 2022-2023 school year — a nearly 46% increase from the 2018-2019 school year. That number appears to have risen sharply again: For the 2023-24 school year, Quadirah Locus, program supervisor at Valley Youth House, said community groups have identified more than 10,000 homeless students so far.

At the press conference, city officials and housing advocates discussed the rising number of children without a stable home while standing behind a couch. The announcement comes as part of a citywide “Couches Don’t Count” campaign that launched in 2015.

The slogan references young people who lack a stable and consistent home and often “couch surf” at the homes of friends and acquaintances.

The partnership Thomas and Watlington committed to on Tuesday came after members of City Council sharply questioned district representatives at a youth homelessness hearing in July.

Thomas said Tuesday he “commends the district for stepping up,” and said the $2.3 million is a start. But he also said he’d like to see more money going to these efforts and to the school district in general to help hire more climate staff and school counselors.

Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act, every school district and charter school must appoint a local homeless education liaison to identify students experiencing homelessness and connect them to services.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

More developer tax breaks approved by Philly board of education despite cost to school district

2024-10-25T01:02:08+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education continues to approve controversial tax breaks that have cost the school district millions. But there are signs officials’ concerns about them are growing.

Despite worries about accountability and how much they have benefited district students, board members voted unanimously Thursday to approve 10-year extensions to tax breaks for two developers participating in the state’s Keystone Opportunity Zones.

The vote was held in a separate back room in the district’s headquarters after pro-Palestinian protesters shut down the board meeting to demand the district reinstate educator Keziah Ridgeway. Ridgeway was removed from her classroom by the district following a complaint from the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

The KOZ program waives nearly all state and local taxes, including business and property taxes, for decades for nearly 300 underutilized plots of land across the city.

A Chalkbeat Philadelphia investigation revealed these zones siphon millions of much-needed funding away from the underfunded school district. In many cases they provide little benefit to students. Though these tax breaks represent a small share of the district’s $4.5 billion budget, declining enrollment and sunsetting COVID relief funds have district financial experts projecting escalating shortfalls.

The tax breaks have the support of Mayor Cherelle Parker and the state, Philadelphia Director of Commerce Alba Martinez told the board Thursday. Board members — all of whom were appointed or reappointed by Parker — have consistently declined Chalkbeat’s repeated requests for comment about why they continue to approve the tax breaks. They have directed all questions to the city’s Commerce Department.

“Board Members will not be available for an interview and we do not plan to issue a statement,” board spokesperson Logan Peterson said in an email response to Chalkbeat’s questions Thursday.

During Thursday’s meeting, board member Joan Stern did request a longitudinal study from the city or the developers outlining how the district is impacted financially by the tax breaks, and more details about how students are benefitting.

“We really need to know this in order to justify what we’re doing,” Stern said.

The district’s financial challenges were underscored on Thursday by nearly a dozen students from high schools that are slated to see their after-school programming cut as the federal COVID relief money that was supporting them runs dry.

Rose Semmel, a student at Academy at Palumbo, urged officials to provide more funding to her debate team because it is a “pathway to success.” Her classmate Aster Chau railed against the district for failing to find funding to continue her school’s robotics team. She said robotics has been a crucial part of her academic development.

“The neglect and lack of prioritization for extracurricular activities is unacceptable,” Chau said.

In response, Superintendent Tony Watlington said the district is doing what it can to pursue grant funding and other routes to support the clubs. But he cautioned that “we won’t be able” to completely make up for the millions in federal aid that won’t be there next year.

Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools connected the tax breaks and students’ pleas with a blunt question: “Why do our students have to come and beg for extracurricular money while developers just have to stick their hand out?”

Board members question tax breaks’ benefits for students

The two developers that received the KOZ tax break extensions are military contractor Rhoads Industries, which has parcels in the Navy Yard and the HRP Group’s so-called Bellwether District (HRP Group used to be known as Hilco Redevelopment Partners). The Bellwether District is located at the former site of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philadelphia.

The KOZ extensions were approved by the City Council earlier this month but require school board approval to move forward.

In a presentation to the board Thursday, the commerce department said HRP Group is projecting it will send the school district $554,722 in payments in lieu of taxes (or PILOTs) for its six parcels of land in fiscal 2025. However, district data shows HRP Group only sent the district $26,000 in fiscal 2023. The district did not respond to inquiries about payments for fiscal 2024.

Rhoads Industries calculated it would send the school district $2,782 in fiscal 2025. School district data does not show a PILOT payment from Rhoads Industries in fiscal 2023.

City representatives say the PILOTs amount to more than what the district would have received if the plots of land remained abandoned or undeveloped and hold the district harmless. But even with the PILOT payments, the zones ultimately lead to less funding for the district than if the developers paid regular taxes.

This week, HRP Group released a “community-led 10-year plan” for its Bellwether District redevelopment project that pledges to “continue its Career-Connected Learning program.” First announced in 2020, the developer claims this program has “engaged more than 1,500 district students and employed over 120 high school and middle school aged interns to date.”

That “engagement” is mostly related to students going to career fairs, job shadowing for 16 students, site tours for 105 students, informational interviews with 17 students, and paid internships for 84 students according to a presentation from last month’s school board meeting.

There are over 180,000 students enrolled in Philadelphia district and charter schools.

Board member Crystal Cubbage told city representatives she is “concerned” about some of the career-connected learning plans she’s seen.

“A virtual meeting, career fair, panel discussion, those are not game changers for students,” Cubbage said. “What I would like to see is greater accountability around this.”

When a city representative said Rhoads Industries has so far hired 10 Philadelphia students in its apprenticeship program, there were calls of “Did she say 10?” and “Only 10 students?” from a few people attending the meeting.

The 10-year plan for HRP Group also reiterates a commitment it made in 2021 to create a scholarship program at the Community College of Philadelphia.

A spokesperson for HRP Group said in an email 15 students have received scholarships to date and several students have received “multi-year scholarship support” but did not elaborate on what that meant. All scholarships are targeted to students living in the five ZIP codes immediately adjacent to The Bellwether District site.

HRP Group has thus far been the only developer to provide comprehensive details about how it is working with students.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

From rodents to a ribbon-cutting: How a Philadelphia community united to build a school

2024-08-20T15:53:44+00:00

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When Philadelphia student Chelsea Mungo wrote to her state senators pleading for renovations for her rodent-infested, century-old elementary school, she never imagined she would one day receive thunderous applause while cutting the ribbon on a $62 million building.

“I’m just so happy right now,” Mungo said at last week’s official opening of the new Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus School in West Philadelphia’s Overbook neighborhood.

The old Lewis C. Cassidy building — the one Mungo told her elected officials in 2017 felt like “prison” — was crumbling. The new version, ready for students to start on Aug. 26, would fit in on Google’s campus. The walls are almost blindingly white. The classroom seating is modular and adjustable for even the wiggliest students. There’s a new playground, a sensory room for pre-kindergartners, a “maker’s space,” and an innovation lab.

“Success Starts Here” is emblazoned in the front entryway, in a font bigger than many of the school’s youngest students.

Chelsea Mungo (right), wrote a letter to her state Senator Vince Hughes (left) in 2017 about the old Cassidy building which she said felt like "prison." Mungo, now 17, appeared at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building in Aug.

Cassidy is the second new building the Philadelphia district opened this calendar year, and officials said they hope there will be many more to come. Philadelphia schools are 73 years old on average, with some buildings constructed as far back as 1878. Crumbling infrastructure, damaged asbestos, and lack of air conditioning has closed some schools recently.

As Mungo told senators, aging and unsafe school buildings make it tough for students to learn or envision themselves working in modern office buildings and workspaces. Mungo, now 17 and a Central High School student, has her eyes set on New York University and a biomedical engineering degree. Imagining that future was challenging when she had been learning math in a school with leaky pipes and a mouse infestation.

Despite that dire situation, seven years and a pandemic passed between Mungo’s letter and the opening of the new Cassidy building. Facing a nearly $8 billion estimated price tag to make all of the necessary improvements to the city’s schools, district officials, and state lawmakers say Philadelphia needs more money to build more schools like the new Cassidy.

The district’s capital improvement plan allocates $3.3 billion for fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2030. Of that, $766.9 million is set aside for new construction, $544 million for major renovations, and the rest is split between projects like HVAC updates and electrical work. The plan is funded mostly with proceeds from the district’s bond sales and some limited reimbursement funds from the state.

Philadelphia students “absolutely deserve this,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“There are so many communities that are suffering as a result of the years of disinvestment,” said Democratic state Rep. Morgan Cephas at the event. “We have to ensure that Cassidy is not the last school that we are rebuilding.”

At the ribbon cutting ceremony, students dressed in suits and ties posed for photos with their family members — many of whom had a hand in designing the school itself.

Yaszmeen Muhammad, an autistic support teacher at Cassidy since 2009, said she and other teachers and community members were very involved with the architectural process, which was led by the Black-owned construction company Perryman Shoemaker. (District officials said Cassidy is the first school in the history of the district to be developed by a Black-owned construction company.)

Muhammad said she, other educators, and Overbrook residents wanted to make sure the front vestibule could accommodate students running in from the rain, and advocated for enough space to have class outside on warm spring days.

“We really take pride in the new building and I’m so glad that we were a part of this,” Muhammad said.

She said she cried when she entered the building for the first time.

“I can’t believe it finally got done,” said Tamara Young, a grandparent from the neighborhood who also helped guide the design process.

The building will accommodate over 600 pre-K-8 students this year in 26 classrooms, with a new playground and basketball court.

Joshua Harris, 9, is about to start fourth grade at Cassidy next week. His favorite part of the new building? The gym. His simple verdict: “I like it.” He said he’s also looking forward to incorporating his love of art and painting into his classwork this year.

Joshua Harris, 9, poses for a picture at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Harris will start fourth grade at the new Cassidy school next week.

Outside, there’s a bench dedicated to Marcus Yates, a 5-year-old who was shot and killed before his first day of kindergarten at Cassidy in 1988. His mother, Rochelle Yates-Whittington, had attended school in the old Cassidy building as did her siblings and her other children. She spoke passionately about what Cassidy has meant to her family at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

She’s also donating a copy of her book — “Can You Fix My Heart” — to the school’s new library.

Yates-Whittington said she hopes her family’s story will help other families and young people who’ve been impacted by ongoing gun violence in the city.

“I love Cassidy because you loved on us,” Yates-Whittington said to the current and former Cassidy teachers and school leaders at the event. “You nurtured my kids back to health. You protected them … no matter what was going on in their life, you were here for them.”

Now, she hopes the new school building will do the same for future generations.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Josh Shapiro awarded $1.5 million to grow Pennsylvania’s special ed workforce, but Philly’s public schools didn’t apply

2024-08-15T20:12:01+00:00

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A new $1.5 million state grant offered school districts and universities across Pennsylvania a chance for funding to grow their special education workforce. But, despite a dire special education teaching shortage, the Philadelphia school district chose not to apply.

The Developing Future Special Educators Grant, awarded by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, provides school districts and universities with up to $20,000 over a two-year period to establish “experiential learning” programs for high school and college students interested in pursuing a career in special education.

Overall, 77 districts, charter schools, and universities will receive the funds including Pittsburgh public schools, but the only Philadelphia schools on the list are Lindley Academy Charter School and several private universities: Saint Joseph’s University, Chestnut Hill College, Holy Family University, and Eastern University, which has a campus in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia school district said because the grant amounts were relatively small, it is instead focusing on applying for larger grants dedicated to improving its aging buildings.

“It seems like a grant geared more for smaller [local education agencies],” Monique Braxton, a spokesperson for the school district, said in an email to Chalkbeat. “When this grant application was due, we were very busy with applying for much larger grants from the state for facilities upgrades.”

The quality of the district’s schools has been in the news for the last few months following student protests for better facilities and school closures related to the lack of air conditioning.

Educators say the ongoing teacher shortage is putting a strain on existing classroom teachers and school staff, resulting in larger class sizes and heavier workloads.

Tatyana Williamson, a special education teacher at Frankford High School, had to take over a science course after a teacher left in the middle of the year. Retention rates are so bad that Williamson says she waits until November to gauge if a teacher is leaving or staying.

Often, Williamson said, kids will ask, “Miss, are you going to be here next year?”

Recruiting and retaining teachers has been a struggle in Philadelphia. Teacher attrition rates in the city have skyrocketed since 2018. In 2022, 13% of traditional public school teachers and 23% of charter school teachers left the classroom, according to research by Ed Fuller at Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis. Some of the shortage stems from a lack of preparedness, low salaries, inadequate support, and more.

As a result, many schools in predominantly black neighborhoods have a high influx of inexperienced teachers and emergency certified teachers.

“We desperately need all teachers,” said Nicole Wyglendowski, a learning support teacher in North Philadelphia. “I’m wondering why when presented with solutions and money which is what we need more than anything is the funding why aren’t we helping ourselves. Why aren’t we taking the opportunity to help ourselves when we have such a big need?”

In June, the district had around 450 open teaching positions, with special education producing the highest vacancy at 150 open positions. Over the past few weeks, the school district has boasted about filling 95% of its teaching positions, but a spokesperson for the district did not immediately respond to Chalkbeat’s questions about how many, if any, of the 150 special education spots have been filled.

More than 400 open positions will mean thousands of students will start the school year without a full-time certified teacher.

Philadelphia has been trying to combat its teacher retention problems for some time – developing a pipeline for paraprofessionals to get their certification to become full-time teachers, offering student teachers stipends, and more.

In addition, the district has held hiring fairs all summer to bring in new teachers, sometimes offering interviews on the spot.

Many teachers say these attempts are futile without increasing the pay.

“There’s a lack of respect for the profession and it’s shown by the need to increase salaries. They need to give them more support in the schools themselves,” said Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

In February, the Board of Education ratified an agreement between the union and the district that gave a 5% pay raise for teachers that will take effect in September. For teachers at the beginning of the pay scale, this increase can feel small.

Pay for a full-time special education teacher in Philadelphia starts at $52,516 — a 5% raise would equate to roughly $55,000. With the rising costs of living, many say it isn’t enough.

Wyglendowski has been asking for donations on social media to pay for supplies for her classroom. And she’s not the only one. Teachers around the country have started asking their followers to contribute to their Amazon wishlists and or donations.

“It shouldn’t rely on what kind of community resources that you have to see whether or not your kids get the resources they need,” said Wyglendowski. “Sometimes it’ll be mid-year and I’ll have to do another fundraiser because I’m like ‘guys we run out of pencils, I got no erasers, like I have a kid who needs uniforms … it’s crazy that I have to rely on that.”

Azia Ross is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at aziaross@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia property reassessment will boost schools revenue by $115 million over 5 years

2024-08-05T20:19:19+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker said Monday that the city’s current reassessment of property values will generate about $115 million in additional revenue for Philadelphia schools over the next five years.

“That’s not why we did it,” Parker said, “but that’s something we can all be happy about.”

The city last did a reassessment in 2022. At Monday’s press conference, Parker and city Director of Finance Rob Dubow both said that the city needs to keep its assessments up to date in order to make them “fair, equitable, and accurate.”

In the past, the city sometimes went years between reassessments, making them skewed and uneven as some areas gentrified and the city’s demographics shifted. The city has also historically failed to collect delinquent taxes, which penalized the district, since more than half of property tax revenue goes to the district.

The Board of Education, which is appointed by the mayor, has no taxing authority of its own. The district is completely dependent on Philadelphia city government and the state for its revenue.

Parker called a press conference to announce that the reassessment will increase taxes for the average homeowner by about $330 next year, while reminding them of the homestead exemption and other programs targeted to those living on low or fixed incomes.

That increase comes on top of a $125 million boost in city funding for the district as a result of Parker’s earlier decision to increase its share of city property taxes from 55% to 56% in the 2025 budget.

The total annual district budget is $4.5 billion, of which about 41% is provided by the city. Most of that amount comes from property tax revenue. The state contributes 46%, with the rest coming from federal sources.

At the press conference, Superintendent Tony Watlington promised that “we will provide a return on investment for every one of these dollars.”

He said the additional revenue Parker announced will help pay for extended-year programs in up to 20 pilot schools, and a relaunch of Parent University.

Watlington also reiterated his oft-made points that since he took over the district in 2022, key statistics have been trending in positive directions: dropout rates have declined, student and teacher attendance has increased, and test scores and the four-year graduation rate have risen.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Josh Shapiro: Learn about the education track record of Kamala Harris’ potential VP pick

2024-08-01T18:56:42+00:00

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Of all the vice presidential candidates reportedly under consideration by Democratic presidential frontrunner Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has one of the most extensive education records.

But he hasn’t always been in lockstep with the Democratic Party — or teachers unions — when it comes to schools.

His public support of private school vouchers last year drew the ire of some national public education groups. Facing intense pushback from public school advocates, teachers unions, and some fellow Democrats, Shapiro has since tempered that position, and has not resurrected the $100 million state-backed voucher program that he struck from last year’s state budget.

Pennsylvania’s teachers unions, which strongly oppose private school vouchers, have not separately endorsed Shapiro explicitly for vice president.

The state’s teachers unions might welcome Shapiro as Harris’ running mate not so much because they think he would be their biggest champion in the White House. Instead, they could be motivated by the possibility of having a stronger ally in Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, a Democrat who would take over for Shapiro, according to one source with experience in progressive state politics, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Soon after Harris emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, 50 labor leaders, including the presidents of the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and the Pennsylvania branch of the American Federation of Teachers, signed a letter of support for Shapiro. The letter does not directly mention Shapiro as a possible Harris running mate.

“Governor Shapiro knows better than anyone that we don’t have to agree on every single issue to continue to get stuff done,” the letter states.

Chris Lilienthal, a spokesperson for the PSEA, said Thursday that Shapiro has a “very good record” on public education, and that “we think he would be an asset to the Harris campaign.”

AFT Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers declined to comment.

Separately, Shapiro’s support for Israel and strong disavowal of pro-Palestinian university campus protests has also made him a target of progressives, some of whom claim that choosing Shapiro could divide Democrats.

His supporters in Pennsylvania say Shapiro is a measured politician who’s able to course-correct when he gets new information.

“He’s been far more amenable to suggestions that I think most people would ever give him credit for. He’s very good at taking in new information, he’s very good at looking at data, he’s very good at taking a step back to look for a bigger picture,” said state Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee, referring to working with Shapiro on education policy.

Shapiro was elected governor in 2022 after previously serving as the state’s attorney general since 2017 and as a state representative.

With Democrats and Republicans splitting control of the legislature, Shapiro was able to negotiate and sign a budget this year that includes record-setting funding for public schools — though not as much as public school advocates would have liked — and increases in state funding for early childhood education and special education.

In addition, he’s secured universal school breakfast for public school students, and pushed for strengthening the state’s K-12 teacher pipeline.

Shapiro has the support of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. (Harris’ campaign told Politico that she plans to hold her first rally with her VP pick in Philadelphia on Tuesday.)

“If you want to win Pennsylvania, there is no other candidate in this nation positioned to help us win the White House than our governor, Josh Shapiro,” Parker said at a rally to endorse Harris July 26.

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said that “despite being the only Governor in the nation with a divided legislature – and despite bad faith attacks from all sides – Josh Shapiro has been a champion for public education and delivered real results.”

Here’s what we know about Shapiro’s education record in Pennsylvania:

Shapiro’s past support for school vouchers drew criticism

Shapiro, who attended a private Jewish day school and sent his kids to one as well, originally proposed a $100 million private school voucher program in his budget last year in coordination with state Republicans.

After intense pushback from the teachers unions, public education advocacy groups, and Democrats, he ultimately vetoed the proposal and did not take up the issue again in earnest this year.

“In his second budget, he didn’t bring it up. He didn’t put it in his budget address. And it was never seriously on the table this year,” Schweyer said.

But Shapiro’s willingness to champion vouchers at all, a position shared by some Philadelphia Democrats, did not go over well on the national stage.

During a visit to Philadelphia last year, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona underscored national Democrats’ views when he said he was “totally against” vouchers. If he were to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee, it’s likely Shapiro would face pressure to express such opposition to vouchers.

In a letter from late July, a group of national public education advocacy organizations wrote that Shapiro’s support for vouchers amounts to him supporting “education policies mirroring Project 2025,” referring to the presidential transition plan proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But Democrats and public school supporters aren’t alone in their criticism of Shapiro’s track record on private school choice. Vouchers and school choice in general are core parts of the Republicans’ education platform. Pennsylvania GOP members said they felt stung by Shapiro’s initial commitment to the program last year, only for him to subsequently veto the program in the budget.

Still, some education advocates who’ve disagreed with Shapiro’s support for vouchers are still backing him. Schweyer, who said he’s “proudly one of the most anti-voucher legislators” in Pennsylvania, threw his support behind Shapiro and defended his education record on social media.

Schweyer said “what we’ve done in education, I would argue, is more transformative and more impressive than fixing a bridge in 12 days,” referring to Shapiro’s nationally lauded success overseeing the rebuilding of a section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.

Despite nixing a private school voucher program, Shapiro has pumped more funding into Pennsylvania’s tax-credit programs that support school choice — the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

Shapiro condemned students’ pro-Palestinian protests

Along with his support for vouchers, most of the national criticism aimed at Shapiro has come from progressive Democrats, young voters, and pro-Palestinian advocates who say his vocal support for Israel would divide the Democratic Party.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a staunch supporter of Israel and has taken a hard-line stance on university campus protests and encampments at University of Pennsylvania. He called on the university to “disband the encampment, and to restore order and safety on campus.”

He also called former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill’s testimony to Congress about campus antisemitism “absolutely shameful.”

However, Shapiro has also strongly condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him “one of the worst leaders of all time.”

Public school funding got boost from Shapiro

Faced with a court mandate to reform the way Pennsylvania funds its public schools, Shapiro has called for increasing basic school funding by more than $1 billion in each of the last two state budgets he and lawmakers negotiated.

“The results of two years of budgets under Governor Shapiro are almost $2 billion of new funding to schools,” and millions more for other kinds of support for public schools despite Republican attempts to curb funding, Schweyer said.

However, Shapiro and state lawmakers also failed to deliver a long-term plan to move the state towards fully funding public schools.

“The same budget legislation that admits the scope of the Commonwealth’s constitutional shortfall still leaves nearly 90% of that hole to be filled by some undefined date in the future, or not at all,” the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center said in a joint statement after the budget signing.

Shapiro turned to teacher pipeline to address shortages

Persistent teacher shortages have plagued Pennsylvania, as well as the rest of the country. Shapiro’s administration has made an effort to grow the teacher pipeline, though educator advocates have said he could have done more.

In the most recent budget Shapiro signed, allocated $1.4 million in funding for districts and universities to “engage” students interested in working with students with disabilities. In Philadelphia, the hardest to staff teacher positions have been in special education.

The budget Shapiro signed also added $20 million more for student-teacher stipends — though the demand outweighed the allocation last year, a trend that’s expected to continue. To provide every student-teacher in the state with such a stipend would cost roughly $75 million annually.

The most recent budget also created a pathway for non-U.S. citizens to become teachers.

Shapiro said he’s ‘building better schools’

Public education advocates have also celebrated Shapiro’s ability to secure universal free breakfast for all Pennsylvania students.

In addition, he’s secured money for much-needed school construction and renovation, a new “solar for schools” energy program, and millions more for career and technical education.

In a post in late July on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Shapiro touted these and other education policies as examples of his ability to work with Republicans.

“We’re building better schools for the next generation of Pennsylvania leaders,” Shapiro said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia schools will get a $232 million increase in the new state budget

2024-07-12T19:14:57+00:00

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Pennsylvania’s new $47.6 billion budget includes an historic increase in education funding. But advocates and school officials say it falls short of the transformational change Philadelphia schools need.

The new budget, signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro late Thursday night, includes $1.1 billion more for K-12 education — the state’s biggest one-year increase for school spending in history, according to Shapiro. That increase includes $232 million more for Philadelphia schools.

The budget also includes funding for solar projects at schools, $20 million more for student-teacher stipends, $17.7 million more for early childhood education, a $100 million increase in special education funding, and $100 million to reimburse school districts for payments they make to cyber charter schools.

The accompanying school code bills that passed along with the budget also create a funding stream for lockable cell phone pouches, require every school district in the state to employ a school security officer, and establish a certification pathway for non-U.S. citizens to become teachers in Pennsylvania.

The budget deal reflects a compromise between Shapiro, the Democratic-controlled House, and the Republican-controlled Senate. It leaves out many far-reaching programs and reforms that the governor and lawmakers pushed for during various phases of budget negotiations.

There’s no Jay-Z-backed school voucher program. There’s no seven-year timeline to move the state towards closing its unconstitutional funding gaps between wealthy and less affluent school districts. There’s no wholesale reform of how cyber charter schools are funded and monitored. And there’s no new money to fund grow-your-own teacher recruitment programs.

A bipartisan early literacy bill that would have aligned school district curriculum and teacher training statewide with the science of reading also did not survive budget negotiations. However, Philadelphia schools will start next school year with new English Language Arts curriculum district officials claim is research-backed. The district approved the new curriculum as part of its budget process.

For many public education advocates, the budget’s failure to establish a plan or timeline to close the so-called “adequacy gaps” in per-pupil spending between the state’s wealthy and low-income districts was a major misstep that will hurt Philadelphia significantly. Advocates say without such a timeline, the legislature will fail to fully satisfy a Commonwealth Court judge’s ruling in 2023 that declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.

In earlier drafts of the budget, lawmakers proposed raising state education funding over a seven-year span. That represented an effort to gradually close “adequacy gaps” in per-pupil spending between districts, but also cushion the one-time impact on the state’s rainy-day fund and reduce the possibility of big education increases one year and major cuts the next.

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement Friday that the budget deal is the first step toward closing the adequacy gap – “a first step that has been decades in the making.”

But Watlington also noted that while “this budget is the beginning of amending the impact of cyber charter school funding,” it does not go far enough.

The state’s fiscal 2025 budget is coming at a pivotal time for Philadelphia families and educators.

Federal COVID relief funds for schools are sunsetting this year, putting many school resources in jeopardy. Philadelphia’s aging school buildings still need billions of dollars in repairs, the city is struggling to recruit and retain teachers, Mayor Cherelle Parker and Watlington are embarking on a plan to create year-round educational opportunities. And the district has projected budget deficits in the coming years if state spending doesn’t continue to increase.

The Philadelphia Board of Education adopted its $4.5 billion budget in May, with an assumption that the district would get an estimated $240 million increase in state aid. That prediction turned out to basically match the final budget signed by Shapiro, a Democrat. However, the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission determined that Philadelphia is underfunded by at least $1.4 billion annually.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement Friday the final budget package “falls short of transformational reform of Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional and inequitable system of funding public education.” He added that “the wild west of under regulated cyber charters also went untouched.”

State Rep. Morgan Cephas, a Democrat who represents Philadelphia, said in a statement that the budget is far from perfect but represents “a solid compromise.”

“Philadelphia students will soon be able to look across the city limits and see that they have the same facilities, opportunities and possibilities as the kids in neighboring, suburban counties,” Cephas said. “Our kids deserve this.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Azia Ross is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at aziaross@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s some of what’s in Pennsylvania’s new state budget for public education

2024-07-12T13:32:23+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Perhaps the most significant number in the 2025 budget, passed and signed Thursday night, is $1.1 billion in new spending on K-12 education.

The funding comes after Commonwealth Court declared that Pennsylvania’s current method of funding public schools was unconstitutional, citing inequities between the state’s wealthiest school districts and its poorest.

While the general appropriations bill — the legislative centerpiece of the budget — outlines how much money will go towards education in the coming year, it’s another bill that tells the state how it can spend those funds: the public school code bill.

Code bills are passed alongside the budget. While the general appropriations bill says how much money each part of the government will get, the code bills more or less lay out how those dollars can be spent.

The bill also contains what are effectively individual policies, from the massive new funding formula that will change how money is distributed to Pennsylvania’s school districts, to smaller policy points, like allowing schools grants to provide menstrual hygiene products.

Here are some of the big items that made it into this year’s code bill:

The new funding formula

Arguably the most substantive part of the bill lays out how more than $526 million in adequacy and equity grants will be distributed to Pennsylvania’s school districts based on factors like the student poverty rate.

Because schools receive so much funding from property taxes, school districts where property values are lower have an inherent disadvantage.

The $526 million in new funds is intended to shrink that equity gap and award extra money to schools with high levels of poverty among its students and greater numbers of kids whose primary language isn’t English.

What data would drive those funds was one of the biggest sources of contention between Democrats and Republicans during the drawn-out budget negotiations.

Democrats had hoped to use data reported by the school districts themselves, while Republicans wanted to use U.S. Census data.

Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), who was a leader in creating the House Democrats’ version of a funding formula, said, “The schools have a pretty good idea when they’re talking to these parents whether or not they’re making $30,000 a year or they’re making $300,000.”

He said that census data has historically underreported poverty.

However, Senate Republicans, who ultimately won out, said that the self-reported data is too hard to verify.

Ultimately, the parties agreed to use Census figures.

Democrats had to make other concessions in the fight over equity funding as well. Back in February, Gov. Josh Shapiro had proposed spending $872 million on closing the equity gap, a number that was rejected by Republicans.

Charter school payments

When a student attends a charter school, the charter school gets money that would have gone to the student’s school district. The amount is based on the average per-student spending of that school district, with a separate formula for students with disabilities.

The code bill establishes a formula for reimbursing traditional public schools for some of the money that follows would-be students to cyber charter schools. The budget set aside $100 million for that purpose. It also changes the formula for how much money follows students with special needs, which is estimated to save public schools $34.5 million.

The bill would also force charter schools to put in their advertisements that they were paid for with taxpayer dollars, a largely symbolic victory for Democrats who opposed money intended for public schools going to charters.

It also makes new requirements of charter school board members. At least five must be non related voting members. Charter schools will also be required to make certain budget documents public.

Security and mental health grants

Schools will receive $120 million to provide security and mental health services. Every school district will now be required to have a security guard, and the money can go to funding that position. Plus, those security guards can be armed.

Of that, $20 million is set aside for safety grants for non-public schools and school entities like charters.

Feminine hygiene products, cell phone locks

The bill also provides funding for policies that had been included in bills that were introduced through the traditional legislative process, but never completed by the House or Senate.

That includes up to $3 million for grants that would allow schools to purchase feminine hygiene products. The idea appears similar to one proposed in a House bill sponsored by Rep. Darisha Parker (D-Philadelphia).

Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R-Clinton) said the free tampons could promote “communism” when the bill was debated on the House floor. The bill was never taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Funding for a grant program that would allow schools to lock students’ cell phones away during the school day mirrors a bill sponsored by Sen. Ryan Aument (R-Lancaster). That bill passed the Senate, but never appeared in the House.

The public school code bill would allow some of the school safety and mental health funding to go towards the purchase of special bags that can be locked during the day for students to place their phones in — so long as the school comes up with a policy prohibiting cell phone use during the school day.

Philly students rally for more school funding at state capitol as budget debate grinds on

2024-07-01T22:57:48+00:00

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Students from 17 Philadelphia high schools rallied at the state capitol in Harrisburg last week to demand that lawmakers provide adequate support to their underfunded public schools.

The roughly 40 students who participated in the rally were part of a Youth Leadership Fellowship at PhillyBOLT — which stands for Building Our Lives Together — to learn how to create change in their communities through field trips and curriculum. They also went on a similar trip to the city in May to stress the importance of school funding.

“Schools all over the city don’t have adequate central air systems; they have worn down books and school supplies, and the buildings are literally collapsing at the seams,” said Mecca Patterson-Guridy, who spoke at the rally about her experiences as a coach with PhillyBOLT.

The rally on Thursday came as debates about the Pennsylvania budget for the next fiscal year focused in large part on funding for public schools. State legislators have struggled to decide how they will spend on public education — and how much to spend on schools.

One factor complicating the issue is a controversial new private school voucher proposal that most Republicans and some Democrats in the statehouse want to see enacted. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has previously backed vouchers.

Lawmakers have missed a June 30 deadline to approve the state budget.

The most recent budget proposal, approved by the Pennsylvania House and awaiting action in the state Senate, would increase public school spending by $5.1 billion. Philadelphia schools would get more than $242 million more in basic education aid next year and nearly $1.4 billion more over the next seven years, if the budget proposal is adopted as written. They could receive additional funding if lawmakers also adopt controversial changes to how cyber charter schools are funded.

But Republican lawmakers have balked at the proposed increase. They say the state should be cautious about how much of its $15 billion surplus it spends in one year.

The students with PhillyBOLT say if the state has that money, it should be spent on improving public education.

Students with the community group PhillyBOLT are calling on state lawmakers to ensure state education aid meets the needs of Philadelphia schools.

“We hope people do pay attention to the need for funding for public education. I mean actually take action on it,” said Hillary Do, founder and executive director of PhillyBOLT. “Because our schools are very underfunded. It’s a problem across the state, not just in Philadelphia and we want to make sure that our young people get the chance to thrive and that starts in many ways with our public schools.”

Some of the school improvements the students want to see include better school lunches, no asbestos, new sports equipment, and extracurricular activities available for all students.

The possibility of private school vouchers remains controversial amid the tense budget talks. Proponents of the proposed Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (or PASS) scholarships — including the philanthropic arm of rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation — say they would not impact public school funding and would help low-income families access schools with smaller class sizes and more resources.

Voucher opponents however say any taxpayer money going to private schools is money that could be going to help fulfill needs like those laid out by the students in PhillyBOLT. Critics also say private schools are not as open to students as public schools.

Azia Ross is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at aziaross@chalkbeat.org.

More money for schools in Pennsylvania will yield thousands more high school graduates, report finds

2024-06-20T20:09:49+00:00

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New research from the University of Pennsylvania shows that sending billions more to school districts in the Commonwealth will more than pay for itself over time by increasing high school graduation rates and college enrollment levels.

The report backed up an analysis of the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission that recommended an increase of $5.1 billion in state funds, distributed in a way that assures adequate spending for all districts, weighted according to students’ needs. It comes just a few weeks before the June 30 deadline for approving the state budget and its level of education aid.

“We know that high school graduates over their lifetime make far more income than students who disengage and drop out,” said Brooks Bowden, a professor of education policy at Penn’s Graduate School of Education who supervised the research conducted by graduate students David Loeb and Katie Pullom.

High school graduates pay more in taxes and are less likely to need government welfare support or enter the prison system. Bowden said the report’s findings make sense “if you think of education as a public good and a pathway to freedom and a sustainable livelihood” for more students.

The Democratic-controlled House earlier this month passed a budget that includes the $5.1 billion in additional school aid, which also is included in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget.

The commission, made up of a bipartisan group of legislators and three representatives of Shapiro’s administration, formed in the wake of Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer’s Commonwealth Court ruling in February 2023 that the state’s education funding system is unconstitutionally inequitable and inadequate.

The funding commission’s report, compiled after holding hearings across the state, found that 367 of the state’s 500 districts, including Philadelphia, are underfunded compared to their needs. It passed 8-7, with all six of the Republican legislators on the commission opposing its conclusions.

To meet the court mandate and following the commission’s recommendations, the education spending proposal approved by the House would increase basic education aid by $728 million each year through fiscal year 2031. All but five Republicans voted against it, including many in poor rural districts that would benefit from the increased spending.

In a contentious debate right before the vote, Republican legislators questioned the relationship between per-pupil spending and student outcomes and decried the lack of an accountability measure for how the money is spent.

The recent Penn study attempts to provide data to address some of those concerns by looking at the long-term consequences of increased spending on expected student outcomes. The complicated economic research studied educational results in 26 other states that have reformed their school funding systems since 1990, either to meet court mandates or out of concern for adequacy. The study then extrapolated benefits a similar increase would yield in Pennsylvania.

It looked at the impact of increased spending for three cohorts of students – those now in kindergarten, those now in sixth grade, and those now in ninth grade. It found that the benefits were greater for the youngest students, who would see improved teacher and counselor ratios – and therefore smaller classes – throughout their school careers. But the older students would also see gains in outcomes, the report said.

Saying that the estimates “err on the side of caution,” the report concludes that the commission proposal “is a wise investment that would yield quantifiable benefits to Pennsylvania’s students, economy and society that exceed the funding increase.” In calculating the effects of increased spending, it only focused on one-third of students – those most likely to graduate high school if they had better access to teachers, counselors, and other resources routinely available in wealthier districts.

For students entering kindergarten in 2024, adequate spending would increase their high school graduation rate by 4.47 percentage points – translating into an additional 3,800 students receiving a diploma. The college-going rate among the 85,000 students entering kindergarten this year would increase by 4.54 percentage points, or 3,860 students. So while increased costs over the 13 years of their schooling would amount to $4.3 billion, the benefits would exceed $5.1 billion, the report found.

“These educational improvements will translate into societal economic benefits that exceed the costs. The full benefits will likely be far greater,” the researchers wrote.

The report notes, in its analysis of current spending: “Compared to adequately funded districts, underfunded districts have more low-income students, lower staff salaries, and higher student-to-staff ratios. Average total revenue per need-weighted student is $4,600 lower in these districts. The disparities are particularly stark for the 100 most underfunded districts, where total revenue per need-weighted student is $6,000 lower than in adequately funded districts.”

It said that more equitable and adequate spending on K-12 schooling would also help the state’s economy by shoring up the educational workforce through hiring an estimated 18,000 more teachers and increasing teacher salaries in underfunded districts by an average of $7,000 a year. The additional funds would allow most of the underfunded districts – 82% – to provide the same teacher-student and counselor-student ratios as wealthier ones.

“What the evidence shows is that as students receive more high quality schooling over time, their outcomes are better,” said Loeb. While beneficial for students now, it is also beneficial for students in the long run.”

A spokesperson for Senate Republicans did not respond to a request for comment on the report’s findings.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Jay-Z’s organization’s involvement in Pennsylvania’s school voucher debate raises ethics questions

2024-06-15T00:36:58+00:00

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Inside Beckett Life Center, a North Philly community center, families on Wednesday gathered around catered sandwiches and salads listening to several young volunteers laud a proposal that would pour millions of state dollars into vouchers to help them escape their underperforming public schools.

It was one of 10 “dine and learn” events this month organized by Team Roc, the philanthropic arm of entertainment mogul Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, as part of the rapper’s high-profile involvement in the polarizing issue. Families were greeted with signage promoting the pending voucher proposal – known as Pennsylvania Award for Student Success or PASS – by name and had access to stacks of form letters to send to lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro in support of the initiative, also known as Senate Bill 757.

At the PASS It Forward "dine and learn" event sponsored by Team Roc, families encountered stacks of form letters addressed to PA lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro urging them to support the PASS initiative.

Those details about the “PASS It Forward” events led to questions about the ethics of Team Roc’s efforts and whether they have crossed from activism about school choice generally into lobbying for this legislation specifically.

Roc Nation spokesperson Didier Morais initially told Chalkbeat Thursday that the organization was not a lobbying group but “concerned citizens.” And a search of the public lobbying directory did not list Roc Nation, Team Roc, or Jay-Z as registered lobbyists in the state.

Hours after Chalkbeat published this story, Morais responded saying the organization had registered its lobbying paperwork. A copy of the paperwork showed it had been filed the same day the story published.

An expert told Chalkbeat that the signage and form letters available at the informational events could fall under the “indirect communication” portion of the state’s lobbying law, which describes efforts to encourage the general public to take action to directly influence legislative decisionmaking.

“That is classic lobbying,” Adam Bonin, a lawyer and lobbying law expert said about the form letters and efforts to encourage citizens to contact their legislators. “Entities which are involved in such efforts should register and should disclose their activities.”

Bonin added there’s nothing wrong with lobbying and it’s a protected First Amendment activity. But, he said, “the public has a right to know … how much is being spent on these efforts, what areas the entities are involved in, and in the case of coalitions who are the key funders behind these efforts.”

Hours after Chalkbeat published this story, a spokesperson responded saying the organization had registered its lobbying paperwork. A copy of the paperwork showed it had been filed the same day the story published.

Jeffery Frankenburger, deputy executive director at the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission, said he couldn’t comment on the specific case, but he did point to a lobbying disclosure manual that provides examples of lobbying through “indirect communication,” which include “communicating with others asking them to contact state officials or employees” and “drafting letters for a letter writing campaign to be sent to various representatives.”

The PASS It Forward PA website, the official website of Team Roc’s campaign which lists all of the events, only makes reference to Team Roc in small font on its “terms and conditions” page. The website also features a “take action” button directing readers to “Call your local house representative and state senator and urge them to vote yes on PASS to make educational options available to those who need it most.”

Morais told Chalkbeat Thursday that “there was no specific bill promotional language at the event nor did anyone sign anything that references a specific bill.” When informed there was signage promoting the PASS scholarship program and blank form letters available for families to sign and send to their legislators urging them to support PASS, Morais said he would need to look into the issue further.

Signage at the "dine and learn" events featured details about the PASS scholarship legislation and how it would work if enacted.

Workers in black “PASS it Forward” t-shirts staffing Wednesday’s event told Chalkbeat they were instructed not to speak to the press. A Team Roc spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer those volunteers were receiving stipends from Roc Nation.

Frankenburger also said lobbying law states “any person who makes an expenditure for indirect communication,” even if they are not a registered lobbyist, must include disclosure language that “clearly and conspicuously states the name of the person who made or financed the expenditure for the communication.” The form letters did not include any such disclosure language or any reference to Roc Nation or Team Roc.

Frankenburger noted individuals or lobbying firms have 10 days from their lobbying activity to register with the state. Roc Nation’s first community event in Philly was June 10, and they first announced their “campaign” to support the initiative on June 7th. According to Team Roc’s lobbying registration, the group’s lobbying activities commenced June 4 — ten days before they filed.

A political tug-of-war with families in the middle

Philadelphia families attending these “dine and learn” events — especially those from low-income backgrounds — are locked in a political tug-of-war over their educational options. High-profile, monied lobbying groups like the Commonwealth Foundation and now Team Roc are ramping up efforts to tell local families how they would benefit from a state taxpayer-funded voucher program that aims to give students the options to leave underperforming public school systems. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro also has said he supports the effort.

“We must prioritize student-first solutions—programs like [PASS] Scholarships that immediately expand educational freedom for kids in our state’s worst-performing schools,” Commonwealth Foundation Director of Legislative Strategy Kevin Kane said in a statement. “Bipartisan initiatives like these will provide the options families need to find the best educational fit for their children now.”

Lawmakers and advocates across the education spectrum are concerned about Philadelphia’s persistently low standardized test scores but don’t agree on the solution.

Philadelphia politicians including City Council members Kendra Brooks, Isaiah Thomas, Jamie Gauthier, and Nicolas O’Rourke have strongly opposed any type of voucher program. Philadelphia’s city council approved a resolution Thursday condemning private school vouchers as “harmful to the School District of Philadelphia.”

“Vouchers put public money in the pockets of the rich while draining resources from public schools in our communities,” said Brooks in a statement. “Vouchers will not benefit the children in our communities or fix Pennsylvania’s unfair funding system. Instead, they will deepen the economic and racial divides in Pennsylvania’s school system and widen the gap between the rich and the rest of us.”

Signage at the "PASS It Forward" event instructed families how to apply for PASS scholarships. The bill creating the PASS program is still being considered by state lawmakers.

What would the PASS program do?

The PASS program is a voucher program being negotiated as part of the state budget process.

If approved, the PASS program would offer low-income families up to $10,000 in scholarships to attend private schools. To qualify, students must attend a state-designated “low-achieving” school, and their household income must be 250% of the poverty line, which is $75,000 for a family of four.

This bill is not the first of its kind. Arizona, Tennessee, Indiana, and New Jersey are also grappling with voucher legislation.

Public school advocates like Laura Boyce, executive director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania, have said diverting public money to private institutions stands in direct opposition to a recent court ruling that Pennsylvania has been unconstitutionally underfunding its public school system for years.

A well-funded, fairly-resourced public school district would benefit all Philly students and their communities, Boyce said.

Boyce and other voucher opponents also say that unlike public schools, private schools can choose not to admit students based on their special education needs, gender identity or orientation, or academic remediation needs.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Tony Watlington have declined to comment on the voucher proposal.

Monique Braxton, a school district spokesperson said in a statement: “The Pennsylvania public school funding system has inadequately and inequitably funded low-wealth school districts for decades.” She said the district is “continually forced to parse insufficient resources, resources which cannot meet the varying needs of our students and staff.”

Families at the Beckett Life Center in North Philly ate sandwiches and salads at the "PASS It Forward" events while Team Roc volunteers provided information about the PASS initiative under consideration in Harrisburg.

What does voucher research show?

Increasingly, studies of voucher programs nationwide show wealthy families who may have already enrolled their students in private schools are driving much of the demand.

Voucher research more broadly tends to demonstrate low-income students do not boost their test scores from attending private schools. But there is some evidence that shows those who attend private schools are more satisfied with their school cultures and feel safer.

The research in Philly is limited.

The Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, an advocacy group that provides scholarships for low-income Philly students to attend private, tuition-based schools, published a report this year that shows their students outperformed their public school peers on math and reading standardized tests.

However, their report has some limitations. The report isn’t a direct comparison: For example, the CSFP report compared fourth- and seventh-grade scholarship recipients’ test scores to the scores of all children attending a public school. The private schools also administered different tests than the standardized exams public schools administer, which meant the CFSP data analysts sorted and converted the private school test data into a form that would be comparable to the state’s PSSA test — though not exactly the same.

But for parents like Keyzett Brockington-Ham, mother of three who also attended the Wednesday event, politics comes second to educational opportunities for their children.

“When I saw this I knew this was my time,” said Brockington-Ham about the PASS scholarship event.

Her daughter attends Meade School in North Philly, and her son attends ASPIRA Bilingual Cyber Charter School but Brockington-Ham thinks a private school would be a better option.

“This would be a great opportunity for my children.”

She voiced numerous concerns about her children’s schools like the bullying both experienced as well as little time spent on enrichment like art, music, and gym. Private schools would provide them with more resources they don’t have in the school district, Brockington-Ham said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Azia Ross is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. You can reach her at aziaross@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania House passes education funding overhaul with big aid boost for Philly schools

2024-06-10T22:26:30+00:00

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The Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved school funding legislation Monday that would significantly increase education funding and distribute it in a way designed to ensure all students have access to a quality, equitable education.

The groundbreaking legislation would amend the school code to guarantee basic education aid levels increase steadily for the next seven years. It would also implement a new funding formula that would dramatically reduce per pupil spending gaps between the state’s wealthy and low-income districts, which are on average among the biggest in the nation. It also includes changes to how the state funds cyber charter schools.

If enacted as part of the state’s budget process, Philadelphia schools would get more than $242 million more in basic education aid next year and nearly $1.4 billion more over the next seven years, and another $116 million annually if the cyber charter funding changes are approved.

It passed 107-94, after two hours of sometimes contentious debate.

The funding overhaul comes in the wake of a February 2023 ruling by Commonwealth Court judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional because it fails to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of education for all students. Jubelirer ordered the legislature to overhaul the funding system.

Monday’s vote was split largely along party lines, with all Democrats voting in favor and all but five Republicans opposing the bill. The bill now goes to the Republican-dominated Senate, where its fate is in question.

“There was a time not all that long ago where the state of Pennsylvania was dead last in terms of equitably funding education,” said Rep. Michael Sturla, a Democrat from Lancaster. With this bill, Sturla said, “We’re adding more money and we’re making sure it’s getting spent on proven programs.”

Democratic Rep. Jordan Harris of Philadelphia said it is lawmakers’ “moral imperative” to fully fund Pennsylvania’s schools: “You can’t starve a system and then try to blame it for its inadequacies.”

Republican legislators complained that the bill lacked accountability for how funds are spent; that more money is not guaranteed to improve student outcomes; that traditional educational systems resist innovation; and that money should go directly to parents through school choice, especially vouchers.

“Signing a blank check for public education is the most uncreative way to go about this,” said Rep. Joseph Dorsie, a York Republican. “The only solution in my view is to fund students, not systems.”

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has indicated he favors vouchers, but they’re not part of the bill passed by the House on Monday. Last year, a dispute over whether to create a voucher program in Pennsylvania held up budget talks for more than a month. Shapiro ultimately vetoed a $100 million appropriation for vouchers in the budget while calling the issue “unfinished business.”

A group of elected officials and activists, including Philadelphia Councilmembers Kendra Brooks, Isaiah Thomas, Jamie Gauthier, and Nicolas O’Rourke, rallied outside the statehouse Monday before the vote.

“Vouchers put public money in the pockets of the rich while draining resources from public schools in our communities,” said Brooks.

The school funding legislation is expected to be the centerpiece of the state’s budget this year. The state must pass its fiscal 2025 budget by June 30.

On Monday, education advocates who have long fought for school funding reform were ecstatic.

“We are headed towards a before and after moment for the children of Pennsylvania,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center, which helped represent the plaintiffs in the school funding case that led to Jubelirer’s 2023 ruling. “The most unfair school funding system in the nation will be no more, as thousands of new teachers, counselors, librarians, and school nurses deliver what every child deserves: the opportunity to thrive. We urge the Senate to promptly pass this bill.”

School funding bill includes cyber charter changes

The bill passed by the House would hike basic education aid by $728 million annually for the next seven years, for a total increase of $5.1 billion over that period. Most of those funds would go to 367 of the state’s 500 districts determined by the court to be underfunded relative to their students’ needs.

The proposed budget also includes $1 billion targeted to low-wealth districts that have adopted high local property taxes in an effort to make up for a relative lack of state support for their schools. It also guarantees that no district will get less state aid in 2024-25 than it did this year, even if its enrollment drops — so called “hold harmless.”

Philadelphia ranks about in the middle among the 500 districts in per pupil spending, but its schools have been chronically underfunded. Its students are much more likely to be from low-income backgrounds than their peers in surrounding suburban districts.

District leaders passed a $4.5 billion budget last month that they balanced using reserve funds, mostly federal pandemic aid that is expiring later this year. They also forecast escalating shortfalls through 2029, starting with $88 million next year, based on current revenue projections.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and other city leaders are planning a press conference Tuesday morning urging the governor and legislature to approve a state budget that would fully close Philadelphia’s funding gap.

Lawmakers hammered out the bill following hearings across the state held by the legislative Basic Education Funding Commission in the wake of Jubelirer’s decision.

The legislation would also reform how Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are funded in a way that would save districts more than $500 million annually. With nearly 60,000 students in 13 schools, Pennsylvania has the second-highest enrollment of students in cyber charters of any state, behind only Arizona.

It would set a flat $8,000 per-pupil rate for cyber charters’ regular education students, and a little over $13,000 for those in special education. Currently, each district pays cyber charters based on their own per-pupil costs, which can range as high as $30,000 per student for a district like Lower Merion. Philadelphia alone could save $243 million through this provision.

Cyber charters have attracted criticism in the state for years. Education Voters PA, for example, released a report released last month outlining how cyber charter schools have amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in assets while their students produce subpar outcomes. Defenders of cyber charters have said districts critical of the schools want to take choice away from students.

Chalkbeat intern Azia Ross contributed to this story.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania House takes first step to turn fair education funding plan into law

2024-06-05T17:49:51+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Pennsylvania school districts would save more than $500 million a year under a proposal to set a statewide tuition rate for cyber charter schools that’s part of state House Democrats’ education plan.

The $8,000-per-student cap is part of an 87-page education funding bill that will go to the state House for consideration. The House Education Committee approved the bill in a 14-11 vote Tuesday along party lines with all Republicans in opposition.

Although the bill is not technically part of the budget that the General Assembly must pass by June 30, it incorporates Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal to increase education funding to close gaps between the state’s wealthiest schools and those with fewer resources.

House Bill 2370 would put into law the recommendations of a bipartisan commission to end inequities in Pennsylvania’s school funding system, which a Commonwealth Court judge ruled last year is unconstitutional.

Rep. Jesse Topper of Bedford, the ranking Republican on the Education Committee, cautioned that Democrats, who hold a majority in the House, would have difficulty getting the Senate Republican leadership on board without bipartisan work to craft the education funding bill.

“If it is going to be a centerpiece of the budget, then there will need to be agreement in more than just the House Democratic Party,” Topper said,

In addition to charter school reforms, including a ban on advertising and sponsorships using tax money, H.B. 2370 would codify the recommendations of the Basic Education Funding Commission, which adopted a report with recommendations on funding reform in January.

Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled in February 2023 that the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund public education creates inequity from one community to another. She ordered the state Legislature to fix the funding disparity.

The bill calls for the state to pay $5.1 billion over the next seven budgets to boost the per-student spending of 371 school districts to match that of the state’s most successful school districts, as measured by the state Education Department’s standards.

The bill would also provide an additional $200 million a year divided according to a revised fair funding formula between all 500 school districts. And it would freeze school districts base funding — known as “hold harmless” — at 2023-24 levels.

Finally, the bill would provide tax relief for 169 school districts that have struck the highest property tax rates to raise adequate funding. Those districts would share $1 billion in equity payments over seven years.

Rep. Michael Sturla, a Democrat from Lancaster who was a co-chairperson of the commission, noted that the tax relief element would allow some districts to hold taxes level for seven to 10 years.

“This is about helping local taxpayers in addition to helping the children in our school,” Sturla said.

Rep. Joe Ciresi, a Montgomery Democrat, was the prime sponsor of cyber charter reform legislation that passed the House last summer with a bipartisan 122-81 vote, but it has not been considered in the Senate. That language is now part of the education funding bill.

Critics of cyber charter schools contend they reap a windfall of tax money because they have lower costs but receive the same tuition that school districts must pay to brick and mortar charter schools. That’s compounded by the requirement that school districts must pay charter schools tuition for special education students based on an average of its overall special education costs rather than a student’s individualized needs.

Anne Clark, chief executive officer of the PA Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said she rejects the blanket assertion that cyber charter schools have lower operating costs than traditional schools. Faculty costs are similar and the costs of providing technical support and infrastructure are higher.

“To cut funding to our most vulnerable children at a time when we are trying to improve our educational and economic outcomes seems foolish and counterproductive to what we are trying to do as a state,” Clark said.

Last month, the public education advocacy group Education Voters of Pennsylvania released a report citing net assets held by the four largest cyber charter organizations totaling $486 million. The group also said public records requests revealed more than $21 million spent on advertising.

Setting cyber charter tuition at $8,000 per student would save Pennsylvania school districts $530 million annually, Ciresi said. The bill would set special education tuition for cyber charter students at 1.64 times the regular education tuition, or $13,120. The tuition rates would be revised every three years.

Ciresi said his legislation would correct a lack of transparency in cyber charter organizations.

“When we look at our cyber we don’t have school boards that are elected officials. We don’t have meetings that are held in a public place,” he said. “We can’t even go and listen to what’s going on or comment on it. We don’t have accountability to where the money is going.”

Senate Education committee revives school voucher program at center of last year’s budget fight

2024-05-07T20:13:40+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star

A bill reviving the school voucher program killed by House Democrats during last year’s budget debates passed the Senate Education committee with bipartisan support on Tuesday. The program, called the PASS scholarship, would allow most students in the state’s lowest-performing school districts up to $10,000 to spend towards private schools.

The PASS program was initially supported by Gov. Josh Shapiro during partisan debates over the state budget last year, but House Democrats opposed it. While the version of the budget that passed the Senate included funding for the voucher program, House Democrats refused to pass it unless Shapiro agreed to veto the item. Ultimately, that’s what happened.

The Senate Education committee’s move Tuesday is almost certain to revive that fight.

Public school advocates have long opposed school vouchers, saying the money would be better spent shoring up the state’s public schools, especially in light of the recent court ruling that found the state’s public schools were unconstitutionally underfunded.

“Pennsylvania’s system of public school funding is so inequitable that the Commonwealth Court ruled it violates the state constitution,” said Pennsylvania State Education Association President Aaron Chapin. “Instead of sending hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to private schools, we should focus on the public schools that educate 90% of Pennsylvania’s students.”

Proponents of the program note that, unlike school voucher programs in other states, the PASS scholarship would not take money from public schools that recipients would have otherwise attended.

Sen. Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia), the only Democrat on the committee to vote in favor of the legislation, noted he also supports vastly increasing public school funding. But he also expressed skepticism that any amount of money could help the students stuck in the state’s worst-performing public schools.

“You cannot look past the obvious,” Williams said. “There are parts of Pennsylvania, rural and urban, that are not being served by the public experience and the billions of dollars that we may or may not send to them will not fix that. We cannot find teachers.”

Committee Democrats and Republicans alike acknowledged that the bill being put forward essentially amounted to the start of a battle over what to include in this year’s budget.

“I’m not in the room when the budget deal gets negotiated behind closed doors,” said Sen. Lindsey Williams (D-Allegheny), the minority chair of the committee and a staunch opponent of sending state funds to non-public schools. “There is no trade for vouchers.”

Asked whether Shapiro still supports the program, a spokesperson pointed to his budget address earlier this year.

Shapiro said during the address that he still supports some form of voucher funding for students in underperforming school districts to spend towards “extra tutoring, books and computers, or yes, going to another school.”

Shapiro added, “the Senate passed a proposal last year that included important elements of that, and it’s something I support and consider to be unfinished business.”

The 2025 budget must be passed by both the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House before being signed by Shapiro.

Philadelphians ask City Council for more education funding as COVID aid expires

2024-05-01T19:35:44+00:00

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Philadelphia residents urged their city representatives on Wednesday for more funding for education and out-of-school activities in this year’s budget.

Parents, teachers, students, and advocates testified at the City Council’s public budget hearing that they want $20 million more for the Community College of Philadelphia to provide subsidized transportation and child care to working students. They want to increase the share of property tax revenue that goes to the school district. They want more free preschool seats. And they want the city to renovate and reopen several public pools.

These requests come at a pivotal time for City Councilmembers who are currently engaged in the process of crafting their budget that will reflect their priorities in the year ahead. This year’s budget comes with the added urgency of the end of millions in federal pandemic aid later this year that could hit public schools hard.

Sara Morningstar, executive director of the local nonprofit group After School Activities Partnerships, told councilmembers that thousands of Philadelphia students stand to lose access to after-school programming if the city and school district don’t come up with a plan to continue funding the hundreds of programs across the city that have been dependent on COVID aid.

Several other residents urged their councilmembers on Wednesday to boost the percentage of property tax revenue that goes to the school district from 55% up to 58%.

In her proposed budget, Mayor Cherelle Parker recommended the school district should get 56% of that tax revenue. Parker said this week she would like the percentage to shift as high as 58%, but that such an increase would take time to phase in.

“Children are not the future, they are the now,” Sheryl-Amber Edmondson, grants manager for the Fund for The School District of Philadelphia, told councilmembers. “What we do in this very moment with our power matters.”

Among the groups asking for more funding were faculty and students from the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). Members of the faculty union appealed to councilmembers for $20 million more in operating aid for their school. They say that money could go towards benefits for students like subsidizing transportation costs, providing child care for young parents working their way through school, and providing increased salaries for teachers and staff — many of whom make less than a living wage, they said.

In her budget proposal, Mayor Cherelle Parker announced a new workforce program at the college called the “City College for Municipal Employment” and a proposed increase of $10 million to the school to pay for it, on top of the $51 million the college already gets in its annual contribution.

While the faculty said Wednesday they appreciate the focus on preparing students for the workforce, they said what the school really needs is more operating aid to avoid tuition increases and provide the broader student population with educational support.

Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela, a tenured full-time faculty member, told Chalkbeat the school’s success is inextricably linked to the city’s public school system. Often, she said, students come into the college from the district needing extra help, tutoring, and remediation.

Charlie Allison, another faculty member, testified he has seen his students miss class because they couldn’t afford the SEPTA ride or had to look after a child or young family member. He said like the city’s public schools, the Community College of Philadelphia is struggling with old buildings and a lack of proper temperature controls.

Jaritsa Hernandez-Orsini, treasurer of the college’s student government association, told councilmembers the education and support she’s received as a student at CCP has been the “best thing that’s ever happened” to her and more funding would allow the school to serve other students like her.

Hernandez-Orsini said she was a young person in the foster care system and has experienced trauma and hardship growing up in Philadelphia, but is set to graduate this Saturday and has been admitted to a four-year university to continue her education.

“Amid the chaos and despair, CCP welcomed me with open arms and provided me with the resources and support that I needed to regain my life,” she said.

Elsewhere at City Hall on Wednesday, seven of the nine members of the new Philadelphia Board of Education were sworn in to begin their four-year terms. Parker said Wednesday that her appointees “bring the right balance of experience and change” to governing one of the nation’s largest school districts.

Not sworn in were Crystal Cubbage, who had a professional commitment she could not reschedule, and Joyce Wilkerson, the former board president. Wilkerson has not been approved by the City Council but is remaining on the board at Parker’s request.

Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school board adopts preliminary $4.5 billion budget

2024-03-29T01:42:05+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education adopted a preliminary $4.5 billion budget Thursday for fiscal year 2025 that shows its yearly expenditures will outpace revenue but will be balanced with reserves.

The “lump sum” budget presented by Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman does not include any significant cuts at the school level. A five-year projection shows escalating shortfalls each year, starting with nearly $88 million in 2025 and ballooning to $745 million in 2029.

Those projections do not take into account any extra money coming to the city as a result of last year’s Commonwealth Court decision, which declared Pennsylvania’s current school funding system unconstitutional.

“Even as we face declining revenues, we are committed to doing everything we can to protect the classroom at all costs,” said Herbstman in presenting the numbers to board members.

Even though yearly revenue is falling behind expenditures, the district will end 2025 with a fund balance of $695 million due to the reserves, according to Herbstman’s numbers. Those reserves include what’s left of federal pandemic aid and other sources.

The budget does include proposed increases in education funding from Gov. Josh Shapiro and Mayor Cherelle Parker. Shapiro has proposed increasing state aid to education by $1.4 billion, about $240 million of which would come to Philadelphia. He called it the first downpayment on bringing the state’s school funding into constitutional compliance.

Parker has proposed a $100 million increase in the city’s contribution to the schools, while reiterating that the state should bear most of the burden of making education funding fair and adequate across the state.

Superintendent Tony Watlington made the case during the meeting that the district has made good use of additional funds, citing the results of a national study showing that Philadelphia recovered to pre-pandemic achievement levels faster than any other urban district. He noted that the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission determined that Philadelphia is underfunded by at least $1.4 billion annually.

He said that he planned to pilot in 15 schools an extended day and year-round school, which Parker proposed during the mayoral campaign. He did not put a price tag on the initiative.

He also said he planned to relaunch Parent University, which offers classes so parents can help their children with schoolwork, and start a major recruitment effort to get more Black and Latino male teachers.

The board approved the preliminary budget by a unanimous 8-0 vote. Board member Leticia Egea-Hinton was absent.

The district’s final budget must be approved by both the city, while the state’s contribution to education is still a matter of negotiation as it finalizes its spending plan. The board will hold a hearing on April 25, and city council will hear testimony on April 30. The city approves its final budget on May 30 and the state on June 30.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

What Philadelphia public schools could get in new city budget

2024-03-14T19:28:57+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s self-described “big” and “bold” first budget would increase funding for public schools, include a pilot plan for year-round learning, and create a new workforce pipeline program in the Community College of Philadelphia.

But despite ample city coffers due to post-pandemic years of unusually strong revenue collections, the proposal — and accompanying five-year financial plan — still relies on state funding to make up the district’s anticipated $400 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.

This is Parker’s first budget and the blueprint for how Philadelphia’s 100th mayor — and first woman to hold the job — intends to run the city. While shored up by temporary federal pandemic funding for the past few years, the underfunded school district is facing a $407 million gap for fiscal 2025, aging buildings, a gun violence epidemic that injured 10 students last week and killed one, a mandate to make up lost special education services for thousands of students, significant charter school costs, and teacher shortages.

Parker said her budget would increase city funding for the district, with a current budget of $4.5 billion, by $24 million in fiscal 2025. That would come partly from increasing the school district’s share of property tax revenue from 55% to 56%, which would bring in an additional $18 million. The district also gets revenue from other local sources, including an annual city grant which this year amounted to $282 million.

Parker said she also wants to increase the local contribution to the school district by $2 million each year going forward, and announced a plan to speed up the sale of delinquent tax properties, which she said would also raise more funds for the district.

Her budget proposal would bring the total to nearly $140 million in additional city funds for education over five years, the mayor said, with $129 million going directly to the school district and $10 million to a new workforce program at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Parker also doubled down on her year-round schools proposal and promised to pilot the initiative in schools starting this fall.

“On public education, our goals are high — they must be,” Parker said during her budget address to City Council on Thursday. “For far too long, our students have struggled with far too little. The days of settling for crumbs are over. Our students deserve a full loaf and they’ll get it.”

As Parker gets ready to name a new Board of Education, she signaled her support for Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was in attendance on Thursday. She told him, “You’re my guy.”

Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater issued their own statements in support of Parker’s proposal following her address.

Year-round school, city workforce pipeline, and more: what’s in the budget for schools

The mayor’s major education platform during the campaign was for year-round school and a longer school day, which will be expensive and undoubtedly require union negotiation. She never put a price tag on the proposal, but both she and Watlington came out in favor of a pilot to test the concept.

Parker said her budget includes a “plan for full-day and year-round schooling — offering students educational enrichment throughout the year, with schedules that work for working families.” She said her office of education will launch the initiative in 20 pilot schools this fall.

But she did not give a dollar amount during her address Thursday.

Parker also spoke passionately about the impact gun violence has had on Philadelphia students and families. She said the recent spate of shootings at SEPTA bus stops after school dismissal has “left our city shaken.”

“Enough is enough,” Parker said.

The budget includes $33 million in new investments in public safety for fiscal 2025, increasing the total amount to more than $600 million over five years.

She said she wants to hire 400 new police officers every year and fund 100 officers doing primarily “community policing.” She also wants to add new patrol cars, unmarked cars, video software, cameras at parks and recreation sites, drones, and upgrades to investigative equipment.

Parker also said youth safety is tied to opportunities outside of the classroom which is why she proposed $3.2 million for youth sports

“I know youth sports aren’t just about wins and losses — they’re about giving children hope,” Parker said. “”We should be supporting them.”

For postsecondary education, Parker announced $10 million for the Community College of Philadelphia in partnership with the school district to “establish a first-in-the-nation City College for Municipal Employment” — a city workforce pipeline she said will prepare more students for jobs in city government. Participants will “earn a stipend while they learn and graduate into good city jobs” Parker said.

What the budget leaves out

The mayor’s plan to increase the district’s share of property tax revenue to 56% is significant, but won’t entirely solve the district’s looming shortfall. Parker had said during her campaign that she would like to see a larger share of city property tax revenue go to the school district, mentioning 58% as a goal.

Rob Dubow, the city Finance Director, said at a press briefing on Wednesday that they decided to shift the tax revenue split to 56% rather than 58% because the administration is moving “in concert” with what Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed and what district officials said they needed in their budget presentation before the school board.

Last month, Shapiro proposed a state budget that would increase overall education spending by $1.1 billion, of which nearly $300 million in additional funds would come to Philadelphia. The city’s school costs are primarily covered by the state and the city; last year the state provided 46% and the city 41%, with federal money – mostly pandemic relief funds – making up the rest. Usually, the federal share is much smaller.

Parker cited the 2022 court ruling that Pennsylvania’s education funding system is unconstitutional and the finding by a legislative commission that Philadelphia alone needs $1.4 billion in additional state funds to meet the needs of all its students.

On the district’s aging facilities, Parker said “we need to modernize our existing schools and build new ones,” saying she would be “working with our allies on City Council” including Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas. Thomas has proposed creating an independent authority to handle school construction and renovation, but Parker did not comment on that proposal Thursday.

The primary education initiatives of her predecessor, Jim Kenney, were PHLPreK and the city investment in community schools, which bring social service resources and personnel into school buildings.

Dubow said PHLPre-K would be funded at the same level as last year. Under Kenney, PHLPreK served 17,000 students over several years, providing about 5,000 seats at any one time, and he regarded it as one of his biggest legacies.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia district wants more school-based health clinics but state funding is an issue

2024-03-05T21:06:08+00:00

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For many Philadelphians like Mitata Gbondo who have young children, going to the dentist can be inconvenient, costly, and even scary.

So when a dental clinic opened at William D. Kelley Elementary School, which her son attends, Gbondo jumped at the chance to get a free teeth cleaning for herself and her son. She walked up to the third floor of the school at noon on a Thursday, and entered a fully functioning dental office with candy-colored walls and a picture of a smiling toothpaste mascot.

“This experience has been awesome,” Gbondo said.

School-based health clinics, like the dental office at William D. Kelley, are expanding rapidly across the country. Experts say students — especially those who live in low-income communities — who’ve had access to free and comprehensive checkups, screenings, and even behavioral therapy, do better academically and emotionally.

According to data from Education Plus Health, a nonprofit advocacy group that lobbies for more school-based health centers in Philadelphia, in 2022-23, three out of five students who attended a school with a center improved their attendance from the previous school year.

But these clinics are often underfunded, understaffed, and usually can’t operate without the financial support of a hospital, community health partner, or university.

Some 23 states have passed legislation to try to stabilize funding for school-based health centers by dedicating state dollars to the centers in their budgets every year. But Pennsylvania is not one of them.

“We don’t have a robust system of school-based health centers at all,” said Kendra McDow, the School District of Philadelphia’s medical officer.

The district is trying to change that. McDow said it is looking for health care partners to help start new school-based health centers in one or two district schools over the next three years. After that, they want the number to grow, McDow said.

The dental clinic at William D. Kelley Elementary School is staffed by students and faculty from Temple University's Kornberg School of Dentistry.

There are more than a dozen school-based health centers in Philadelphia and 30 in total across the state, according to Julie Cousler, executive director of the Pennsylvania School-Based Health Alliance and Education Plus Health advocacy groups. The majority of them are at private or charter schools. As with school-based health centers nationwide, the ones in Philadelphia schools are funded by a mix of federal aid, insurance reimbursements, philanthropic donations, and some one-time state grant money.

Only three Philadelphia district schools (Building 21, John B. Stetson Middle School, and Vaux Big Picture High School) have comprehensive school-based health centers with nurse practitioners. Edward Gideon Elementary School has a planned clinic that hasn’t opened yet, and Kelley has the dental clinic.

Meanwhile, New York state has 252 centers in schools (146 of those are in New York City), according to the state health department, and Delaware — the first state to mandate centers in every public high school — has more than 50. Newark, New Jersey just opened its first school-based health center in 2023. But recent funding cuts in New York and Delaware have put those centers in jeopardy.

Cousler and McDow said the centers are vital for Philadelphia students in particular because living in cities near several highways, industrial facilities, and other sources of pollution can trigger or exacerbate chronic health problems like asthma. Those chronic health issues can cause students to be frequently absent from school or make it difficult for them to concentrate in class, McDow said.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21% of children in Philadelphia have asthma — more than double the national rate.

“We have high rates of asthma, high rates of uncontrolled asthma, high rates of hospital visits because of asthma,” Cousler said. “We have high rates of mental health distress among kids and high rates of kids not getting the services they need. So we just have to start going to where the kids are.”

McDow said if Philadelphia officials want to make school-based health centers “really work for our city, we have to have funding.” And she said that would mean state-level legislation.

School-based health centers would not get a dedicated funding stream from the state in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s newest budget proposal.

“Right now, there really isn’t any support for school-based health centers and that’s why it’s hard to sustain them,” Cousler said.

The dental clinic is open to all public school students in kindergarten through eighth grade as well as their families regardless of insurance status.

‘A hub of what families would need’

In the early 1990s, under former governor Robert P. Casey, Pennsylvania received a series of grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to launch a network of school-based health centers in high-need areas, according to Cliff Deardorff, who was the first public health program administrator for the grant for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Between 1987 and 2001, the foundation spent $40 million nationwide on school-based health centers.

Deardorff said there was a lot of momentum around the new initiative.

“It was exciting. This was a new idea for Pennsylvania,” Deardorff said. “We were starting something that we hoped would make a difference.”

But when the grant funding ran out, nearly all of those centers closed. Today, Deardorff said, only one of those original school-based health centers exists.

Deardorff said building community trust around any kind of health center is crucial to keep patients coming back, staff employed, and insurance reimbursements flowing.

“To give somebody a chance to start something like this up, and then, poof, it goes away” was painful, Deardorff said.

But he said he’s hopeful state lawmakers, prompted by advocates like Cousler, might avoid the financial mistakes of the past.

Crystal Edwards, William D. Kelley Elementary’s principal, said it’s been an “honor” to have the dental clinic in her building. She said she’s seen firsthand the good it has done for her students, their families, and even her staff members who can all use the clinic’s services regardless of their insurance status.

“We try to be a hub of what families would need to make sure that their children are not just physically safe, and educationally safe, but psychologically safe and emotionally safe, and I’m just proud to be able to give that to the community,” Edwards said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Record-setting increase in public school funding proposed by Pennsylvania governor

2024-02-06T19:26:10+00:00

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Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a 2024-25 budget Tuesday that increases basic education funding by $1.1 billion, which would be the largest single-year increase ever.

Most of that money, $900 million, would be funneled through a so-called adequacy formula that calculates what every district actually requires to educate all their children to high standards, based on students’ needs.

Shapiro’s proposal comes almost exactly one year after Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional – meaning it is neither fair nor adequate and depriving many children of their right to a “thorough and efficient” education. Currently, districts that educate high numbers of students in poverty, English language learners, and others with special needs generally spend less than wealthier districts, even though their students require more in order to be prepared for college and careers.

Shapiro said in his Tuesday address that his spending blueprint “will deliver real results for the Commonwealth” by “making historic investments in public education.”

Shapiro’s proposal also hews closely to the recommendation of the Basic Education Funding Commission, which spent a year traveling the state to question educators, advocates, experts, and others about education in their communities. By “acting on the work” of the commission, the budget is “delivering a comprehensive solution on K-12 education in Pennsylvania,” he said.

In a report released last month, the commission determined that the state should spend $5.4 billion more annually to bring all districts to adequate funding, with $5.1 billion of that coming from state as opposed to local coffers. It set out a plan to reach that goal by 2029.

The remaining $200 million in Shapiro’s proposed $1.1 billion increase would be funneled through the formula established by the funding commission, which also takes into account student needs in devising a per-pupil rate for state aid. This would assure that wealthier districts like Lower Merion and Radnor still get a share of state aid to help with inflation and other cost drivers.

Under the proposal, Philadelphia would receive an increase of $203 million in adequacy funding, plus $40 million additional through the standard formula.

It would also get a share of the $50 million increase Shapiro is proposing for special education funding, and a share of a $300 million increase in facilities funding.

Shapiro also proposes to cap cyber charter tuition at $8,000 per student, which could provide significant savings for Philadelphia public schools. Philadelphia now pays $11,502 per cyber charter student.

The budget does not include vouchers, which are backed strongly by Republicans who control the Senate and share power in an almost equally divided General Assembly. The state already has two programs that offer tax credits to corporations that donate to scholarship programs, but Shapiro does not recommend any funding increases for them.

Last year, Shapiro publicly stated his support for creating vouchers in Pennsylvania. But he ultimately vetoed a provision to establish vouchers when he signed the state budget. On Tuesday, Shapiro reiterated his support for vouchers and said he considered them “unfinished business.”

‘The transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system’

Advocates who brought the 2014 lawsuit that ultimately led to Jubelirer’s ruling, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, hailed the budget proposal, which is just a starting point in negotiations before a final budget is adopted by the end of June. They said it meets the mandate of Jubelirer’s ruling.

“If carried out to completion, this would mean the transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center. “It would mean thousands of more teachers, counselors, librarians – it would truly be historic.”

Deborah Gordon-Klehr, director of the Education Law Center, hailed the governor’s proposal as “critical,” adding that “it’s the start of what needs to be a long term commitment.”

She said her group would be seeking legislation to guarantee future increases to reach the target set by the commission “so districts can plan, leaders can be held accountable, and students can see the benefits.”

The adequacy formula devised by the funding commission looks at what the most successful districts spend per student and determines what every district needs to get all their students to that level, using a weighted formula that takes into account poverty, English language status, and other circumstances. Philadelphia’s “adequacy gap” was determined to be in the range of $1.4 billion, on a current budget of about $4.5 billion, or about $7,100 per student.

Philadelphia has the 35th highest adequacy gap in the state; Reading’s shortfall of $14,000 between what it has and what it needs is the widest.

Shapiro’s proposal “targets the funding specifically for the districts that are farthest from adequacy,” said Urevick-Ackelsberg.

Of the 500 districts in Pennsylvania, about 400 do not meet their adequacy targets as defined by the commission.

The governor’s proposal to reform cyber charter funding is likely to run into political headwinds.

Pennsylvania has one of the largest cyber charter enrollments in the country, and districts pay cyber charters their own per-pupil costs, even though cyber education costs far less to deliver than brick-and-mortar schools.

“Currently, cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania charge school districts between $8,639 and $26,564 per student per year,” Shapiro said. This, he said, “no longer makes sense. The 2024-25 budget establishes a statewide cyber tuition rate of $8,000 per student per year and will better align tuition with the actual costs of providing an online education.”

He said this reform will save school districts an estimated $262 million annually.

Other education highlights of Shapiro’s budget include:

$50 million for school safety and security.
$300 million in “sustainable funding for environmental repair projects” in school buildings.
$10 million for teacher recruitment.
$15 million, an increase of $5 million, for student-teacher stipends.
$100 million for mental health funding in K-12 schools.
$3 million to provide free breakfast for all students year-round.
$96,000 to help free up $62 million in federal child care reimbursements for providers.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia tax break program fails to deliver hoped-for benefits to students

2024-02-01T11:00:00+00:00

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Every so often, Philadelphia’s school board members have to decide whether to grant huge tax breaks to property developers through a program that, on the whole, siphons money away from the city and the district they govern.

These tax breaks are a lynchpin of Keystone Opportunity Zones, a 25-year-old state program that officials say spurs development on abandoned or underutilized land by waiving nearly all state and local taxes, including business and property taxes, in the zones for up to 10 years. Pennsylvania says the program is a strong economic development strategy.

But by the district’s own estimate, the zones have cost Philadelphia public schools $59.9 million since 2017. The district lost out on $7.7 million in 2022, an amount that could have funded 61 librarians for one year, based on the district’s average salary and benefits equaling $126,000 for the 2021-22 school year, for example. Since 2017, developers receiving new zones or extensions for previously approved zones are required to provide alternative revenue to the district to help offset that impact. Yet nearly three-quarters of the zones still don’t even generate that revenue stream, according to city records.

And when the board had the chance to halt five of the zones last year, it approved them instead.

The program highlights the school system’s place in the city’s political and financial ecosystem. And its trade-offs have become the subject of intense debate. The Philadelphia school district relies heavily on city property tax revenue for its $3.9 billion budget. It has no independent taxing power and is getting just over $1 billion in city property taxes this fiscal year. The district’s projected $407 million budget deficit next year only underscores disputes about the zones.

But criticism of the zones goes beyond their tax impact. Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) developers are now “strongly encouraged” (according to a statement from the city’s Department of Commerce) to offer work and related opportunities for students enrolled in the district’s career and technical education programs. Yet only three developers have actually provided these opportunities, and information about them is not easily accessible. More developers could be offering life-changing opportunities to hundreds if not thousands of students, but aren’t.

Overall, records provided about the program appear to leave out critical details, and it’s not clear which businesses are or should be making required payments designed to serve as an alternative to regular tax burdens. Critics have alleged the overall program lacks transparency and accountability, and that it’s expanded unnecessarily to already rapidly developing neighborhoods like Fishtown and University City.

“Can they afford the tax break? I don’t think they can. I think there’s no way this school district should be writing off anybody’s taxes,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, referring to the board. “They don’t have the money.” She added that the district should be more focused on whether the setup is benefitting students.

This is the Pennsylvania tax break that keeps causing controversy on Philadelphia’s school board

The tension surrounding Keystone Opportunity Zones was on display during an August school board meeting, when board members voted on whether to grant 10-year extensions of the tax abatements to five developers.

Some board members said they didn’t understand why the tax breaks were still needed — and why, in some cases, properties remained undeveloped even after developers had held onto the land for more than a decade.

“I’m trying to reconcile that in my brain,” Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said.

The five developers in question were Enterprise Center, Stateside Vodka, Longfellow Real Estate Partners, Wexford Development, and Arsenal. Arsenal has had a Keystone Opportunity Zone in Tacony since 2004, yet is still trying to develop 12 buildings.

Arsenal has had a Keystone Opportunity Zone in Tacony since 2004, yet is still trying to develop 12 buildings.

Present at the meeting and answering the board’s many questions were not the developers, but Philadelphia Department of Commerce leaders. When Fix-Lopez asked for data about the career-related learning opportunities developers have said they’ll provide for students, the officials responded with details from one developer, Hilco, which was not requesting an extension. The officials did not provide comprehensive information about the others.

Board member Cecilia Thompson said she wanted more time to review the developers’ letters of intent, “because it’s almost as if we are voting blind.”

Despite these and other questions and concerns, the board voted to approve four of the five extensions at the August meeting. Only Arsenal’s extension didn’t get the thumbs-up. Then, in September, the board pivoted and voted to extend the tax break for Arsenal after all.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, board member Lisa Salley said she changed her vote in support of Arsenal after visiting the construction site.

“What we were able to see is the level of complication and the layers of government at the federal level and at the city level, the level of relationships involved with making any decision to develop it,” Salley said.

Salley would not comment on her other votes in favor of the KOZ extensions. Board Vice President Fix-Lopez declined to comment on her decision. No other board members responded to Chalkbeat’s repeated requests for comment about their votes.

The City Council unanimously approved four of the five KOZ extensions last June, a few months before the school board did so.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said she supported Enterprise’s tax abatements because of the developer’s mission (Enterprise is a nonprofit).

“We just have to be very clear before we give up revenue that the city needs, that there’s a concurrent benefit that’s going to come, particularly for Black and brown working class people who are at risk of displacement in our communities,” Gauthier said.

But Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League, who worked on a 2014 report on Keystone Opportunity Zones’ tax impact for the city controller’s office, said that between the city and the school district, “The school district is the biggest loser, at least in the short run.”

Workaround for school district revenue falls short

A state law enacted in 2008 allows the city to require developers using Keystone Opportunity Zones to make payments in lieu of taxes, sometimes known as PILOTs.

The school district receives 55% of these payments. The total payment amount is 10% more than what the real estate taxes would have originally been for each property, and are based on the city’s most recent property assessment.

But even with the PILOT payments, the zones ultimately lead to less funding for the district than regular taxes.

Property owners now sign a contract with the city to pay PILOTs when they are granted the tax abatements. The district received $1.2 million in such payments from developers and property owners in 2023, markedly less (for example) than the $7.7 million the district didn’t collect in revenue due to KOZ tax breaks from the previous year.

And crucially, not all developers who benefit from Keystone Opportunity Zones actually generate those payments. That’s partly because only developers approved for them since 2017, or developers who have been granted extensions by the district since then, are required by the commerce department to make those payments.

Out of 287 properties with KOZ tax abatements in 2023, businesses made payments in lieu of taxes on just 81 of them, according to district records provided to Chalkbeat.

For instance, Urban Outfitters doesn’t make such payments for its three properties on Kittyhawk Avenue, or its property on Flagship Drive. Brandywine Realty Trust doesn’t make these payments on FMC Tower, a prominent development on Walnut Street.

And not all property owners with established PILOT agreements — according to city records — made those payments in 2023. East Capital Partners (which is developing Stateside Vodka’s new warehouse), and Commercial Development Co., the developer of a contested UPS warehouse in the Northeast, did not make their payments to the district in 2023, according to the district.

Neither company responded to Chalkbeat’s multiple requests for comment.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, City Councilmember Kendra Brooks said there needs to be better “collective planning” related to the Keystone Opportunity Zones.

“We can’t continue to create systems that aren’t monitored and we don’t have accountability,” Brooks said. “And the outcome is that our school district is suffering.”

From left: 3800-14 Market St. and 3400 Market St. Both properties are receiving Keystone Opportunity Zone tax abatements.

Information on developers’ help for students is sparse

Perhaps the most direct connection between these opportunity zones and Philadelphia’s students is the chance for students to learn career and technical skills that are provided by some developers — at least in theory.

In December 2018, the City Council passed a bill requiring Keystone Opportunity Zone applicants to include plans to offer apprenticeships, internships, and other work opportunities for students enrolled in the district’s career and technical education programs. These plans are known as Opportunity Plans or — as the district calls them — Career Connected Learning Plans.

But the commerce department said that bill isn’t enforceable because it’s a state-run program, and it’s not a state requirement for developers to offer students such opportunities.

The city is “pretty limited” in how it can change Keystone Opportunity Zone rules for developers “unless there’s a provision in the state law that allows for it,” said Marc Stier, executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center. (The 2008 amendment to state law allowing the city to require PILOT payments is one such change.)

Since 2020, 50 developers, according to the commerce department, have been granted zones or extensions on their zones. Yet just three of those developers have devised and implemented these Career Connected Learning Plans, according to the district: Hilco ReDevelopment Partners, Brandywine Realty Trusts, and Cescaphe of Battery Park. And even those three developers have not fulfilled these plans to the extent they’ve said they will.

The commerce department says the plans have “engaged thousands of students” since 2020, yet neither the school district nor the commerce department shared detailed information about the plans. They are not available online or easily accessible to the public.

The district said Hilco and Brandywine have enacted 95% of their promises, while Cescaphe has 50% of its plans in place. When asked for further details, the district directed Chalkbeat to the commerce department. The city did not share what the percentages mean.

In 2020, Hilco, which bought the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, revealed ambitious plans for providing career pathways to students. The commerce department said Hilco “engaged over 1,300 students” in the 2022-23 school year. But when Chalkbeat asked for details about what the developer provided, the city only cited general information, listing “career fairs, job shadowing, internships, informational interviews and site tours.”

According to the commerce department, Brandywine created a six-week program for Dobbins High School BioTech students to meet with industry professionals, receive mentoring, and go on site tours. Cescaphe donated food to school district events and has been working with Ben Franklin High School’s culinary program to give site tours and develop ongoing programming.

At the August school board meeting, the commerce department presented five new career learning plans with developers’ Keystone Opportunity Zone extension requests. But in December, the district said none of those plans had been implemented yet.

Fix-Lopez, the board’s vice president, zeroed in on the Enterprise Center’s estimate that it would engage with 30 students annually, including 20 who’d get access to career fairs. “That’s one kindergarten classroom, for example,” she said. “In a city of 1.5 million with 200,000 students, how did we come up with 20?”

Cooper, of Children’s First, criticized the commerce department’s failure to truly define what it means for developers to have “engaged” with students.

“Let’s say they do internships — what does that mean? How many hours? What are they learning?”

The office wants to make “quality experiences for students, versus quantity,” said Gianna Grossman, the commerce department’s senior director of workforce development.

The city cannot revoke a Keystone Opportunity Zone designation if a developer doesn’t follow through on plans for students or PILOT payments.

“We are completely within our right to recommend to the state that they not renew,” Commerce Department Director Anne Nadol said in December (Nadol has since left that position).

But the city has not made such a recommendation in the last 10 years, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the agency that runs Keystone Opportunity Zones. Not paying PILOTs or following through on pledges to provide career opportunities to students is also not grounds for denying applications for the zones, the department said.

A Pennsylvania law allows the city to require developers using Keystone Opportunity Zones to make payments in lieu of taxes. But even with those payments, the zones ultimately lead to less funding for the district than regular taxes.

Advocates ask for more on transparency, student promises

Nelida Sepulveda, an advocate for effective workforce and public education reform policies and staffer with Children First, said wants to see public reporting on the effectiveness of the Career Connected Learning Plans.

“If they have a data collection process and reporting structure, they should make it known so that the public can access it and use it as a tool to either promote these types of initiatives or hold stakeholders accountable for poor performance or lack of follow through — since after all, these are public resources that are being utilized,” Sepulveda said.

Then there are concerns about a lack of transparency for decisions like the board’s August and September votes.

“When you post an item that nobody can understand and then you flip your vote and give either no explanation or an incoherent explanation, you’re not telling people what your priorities are and why you’re doing what you’re doing,” said Lisa Haver, cofounder of the education advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.

Children First’s Cooper described the developers’ plans as overall “extremely modest” in relation to the benefit of the tax abatement. More questions should be asked about whether they are providing a sufficient return for students, she said.

“People really underdeveloped those plans. They didn’t demonstrate any significant commitment ... that’s a tragedy,” Cooper said.

Correction, Feb. 1, 2024: Due to inaccurate records from the city commerce department, this article has been updated to reflect that since 2020, 50 developers have been granted zones or extensions on their zones. A previous version of the article said at least 17 developers had been granted zones or extensions based on city records.

Philadelphia’s ‘State of Public Education’ improving but has a long way to go, schools chief says

2024-01-30T21:19:34+00:00

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The “State of Public Education” in Philadelphia is not as strong as it could be, Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a sweeping address Tuesday.

In the first speech of its kind in Philadelphia, Watlington celebrated some incremental successes since he became superintendent in June 2022: Student attendance is up, the four-year graduation rate is up, dropouts are decreasing, and teacher attendance is also improving. But he cautioned that the district is facing many challenges, including a looming budget shortfall of more than $400 million, declining enrollment, low test scores, aging facilities, and a persistent teacher shortage.

With no ability to raise taxes on its own and with federal COVID aid set to run out, Watlington’s ability to appeal to representatives in Harrisburg and City Hall will be crucial to getting the chronically underfunded district more money to address different issues.

And Tuesday’s event — which began with remarks from Mayor Cherelle Parker and was attended by a host of state, federal, and local elected officials — was a public attempt to make the case for adequately funding Philadelphia students.

Watlington, who came to Philadelphia from North Carolina, said in an interview before the address that in his nearly two years leading the district, he has perceived a “crisis of confidence” in a city he described as “hard on itself.”

“All the children are not well, it is no secret,” Watlington said in his speech. Citing modest improvements in several areas, he added: “Is it enough? Absolutely not.”

Speaking at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Watlington presented data showing the district is improving on some markers from 2021-22 to 2022-23:

Student attendance is up from 57% to 60%.
The teacher attendance rate is up from 77% to 84%.
The four-year graduation rate is up from 71% to 74%.
The number of students who dropped out fell from 3,917 to 3,652.

But state test scores show students are still struggling in the classroom; even with small gains last year, most students are still scoring below proficient in reading and math. In Algebra I and Biology, performance has also declined post-pandemic; just one in five students scored proficient in Algebra I last year.

Watlington said he wants to “establish deep partnerships” with district families, caregivers, and community members, and be more transparent with budgeting.

Watlington’s presentation reiterated much of what he said when he finished out his first full year in office. But now, with Parker in charge, changes to the district may be coming.

Parker has expressed more openness to charter schools, which now educate a third of the city’s students. But the Board of Education has not approved a new charter school in six years, and it and the district’s charter office has been accused of racial bias in disproportionately moving to close charters that have Black leadership.

The first hint of a possible political shift on this issue came at last Thursday’s board meeting, when members reversed their previous decision not to renew the Southwest Leadership Academy charter school.

Parker’s presence at Watlington’s speech could signal she wants to take a more hands-on approach to public K-12 education than her predecessor, Jim Kenney. She has the power to appoint all nine members of the school board, and can remake it from scratch if she wants. Current board members’ terms expire on May 1.

So far, she has given no hints about her intentions, although she spoke well of Board President Reginald Streater.

Philadelphia mayor says ‘crumbles of funding’ are inadequate

Watlington said in his speech he is trying to prove to Parker, and to state and federal lawmakers, that under his leadership the district will be a responsible steward of any new funding. He highlighted decisions to reorganize his office, overhauling math and language arts curriculum, eliminating vacant positions, and shaking up his leadership team in an effort to trim administrative staff and focus more on crucial priorities like dropout prevention, facility improvements, and high-impact tutoring.

Parker pledged to work to bring more school funding to the city. She also called out elected leaders attending Tuesday’s event, including several members of Congress, state legislators like House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and City Council members including Council President Kenyatta Johnson.

Philadelphia’s children are “given crumbles of funding when they really do deserve a whole loaf” Parker said of the state’s current school funding system.

Parker commended Watlington for his five-year strategic plan, known as Accelerate Philly, which the school board adopted last year. But she said it’s the job of policymakers and elected officials to “make sure we have the dollars in order to get it done.”

Still, Parker cautioned that “this is going to be a tough year,” and expressed concern about whether city taxpayers should be expected to shoulder more of the burden for schools. She placed her faith in state education funding reform in the wake of last year’s Commonwealth Court decision that the current system is unconstitutional.

In her remarks at the event, Parker did go out of her way to express her continued support for another of her campaign platforms – year-round school, a potentially budget-busting initiative that would require massive union buy-in. In his speech, Watlington expressed some support for extending the school day and year.

The district’s presentation on Tuesday concluded with a “call to action” by Kathryn Epps Roberson, president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia — a source of private philanthropic funding for the district. Epps called Watlington’s five-year blueprint an “audacious approach” to school reform and improvement.

She also announced the Fund’s intent to raise $40 million by 2028 to support Watlington’s plan, including $6 million in year one.

“This has to be a public and private effort,” she said.

That money will provide stipends to people to participate in Parent University, an initiative Watlington intends to revive that helps parents shore up their skills and learn how to better help their children with schoolwork. It will also fund a high-impact tutoring pilot program in up to eight schools, help with teacher recruitment and training, and underwrite swimming programs, among other priorities.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania lawmakers ponder big changes to charter school funding

2024-01-24T14:17:15+00:00

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering significant changes to the way charter schools are funded as they undertake a monumental overhaul of public education mandated by a court ruling.

More than 160,000 Pennsylvania students are enrolled in brick-and-mortar and cyber charter schools, with the latter’s enrollment having ballooned in recent years.

Tuition for these students is almost entirely funded by the public school districts in which they live. In conversations with Spotlight PA, key lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledged that this arrangement leads to financial losses for districts, which can’t reduce costs enough to offset charter tuition.

For years, attempts to overhaul the more than two-decade-old law that governs charters and their funding have repeatedly failed in Harrisburg.

But as lawmakers begin hashing out their legally mandated overhaul of the commonwealth’s school funding system, they’re also taking a serious look at the charter law.

Democratic- and Republican-authored reports, meant to kick-start the funding conversation, offer a glimpse at possible common ground.

They suggest giving public school districts reimbursements for costs associated with charters. Leaders in both chambers have also said it could be possible to change the way districts pay cyber charters for certain students’ tuition.

To make any changes to the way charter schools are funded, though, lawmakers will have to pick their way through a political minefield.

Status quo is based on district spending

The amount that traditional public school districts pay for students’ charter tuition is based on their own per-student spending, with some deductions (facilities expenses are held back from the total, for instance).

The Scranton School District, for example, spent $15,667 per student during the 2021-22 school year; charter tuition for any student without a disability who lives in that district was based on that number.

If a student has a disability, their tuition is built on that base rate for the district, plus a standard percentage of its spending for all disability services — regardless of the kind of disability the student has.

Public school districts and advocates have criticized these billing practices for years.

For one, the mechanism by which disabled students’ tuition is calculated uses an average that doesn’t take different kinds of disabilities, and their different costs, into account. Because districts’ payments for severe disabilities tend to inflate the total, charters can get more money than a particular student needs.

As state Rep. Pete Schweyer, D-Lehigh, recently told Spotlight PA, “A child with spinal bifida is vastly more expensive to educate than a child with some level of hearing loss.” Schweyer chairs the House Education Committee, which will play a key role in negotiating education overhauls, and he broadly supports changes to charter financing.

Lawmakers also face a challenge inherent to Pennsylvania’s funding structure for charters: When a student moves from a traditional public school to a charter, there is no corresponding level of savings.

Education circles commonly refer to this as a “stranded cost” — the gap between the savings a school can realize when a student leaves for a charter, and the cost it still bears to pay for charter tuition.

In a 2017 study that delved into the finances of six different Pennsylvania districts, the nonprofit Research for Action found that charter enrollment negatively affected traditional districts, and that impact deepened as more students left. While RFA found that these effects decreased over time, public schools never completely stopped losing money under the group’s model. The consequences were bigger in smaller districts.

What’s on the table for charter school changes?

Lawmakers on the Basic Education Funding Commission were tasked with coming up with new overall financing formulas for public education, which Democrats and Republicans unveiled in separate reports earlier this year. Both reports included proposals related to charter schools.

The reports pitched the return of reimbursement for at least some stranded costs associated with charters — an old idea. A previous state budget line item that provided a partial reimbursement was cut under former GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration.

“If charter school reimbursement had remained part of the budget and flat funded since 2010/11, it could have offset districts’ need to pass these costs onto taxpayers by approximately $2.5 billion before adjusting for inflation,” the Democratic report said. “However, charter school costs have more than doubled in the past decade.”

The GOP report also noted stranded costs, though it focused specifically on costs associated with cyber charter schools. It offered two reimbursement options, both of which would calculate payments based on districts’ expenses for cyber charter tuition in particular.

Schweyer, the House Education Committee chair, noted that one reason there’s some bipartisan consensus on the issue is that it could be tied to lowering property taxes — a long-held priority for some Republicans.

“Property taxes make up the majority of districts’ budgets, and many administrators testified [during education hearings] that charter payments are a big reason why property taxes must be so high,” he said during his conversation with Spotlight PA.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the union that represents around 180,000 public school workers, has called for $500 million annually to be devoted to the reimbursement line item. While neither the Democratic nor Republican report made a specific financial commitment, PSEA spokesperson Chris Lilienthal said it’s “promising” that both reports called for the funding to be restored.

The Democratic report also briefly mentions changing the way districts pay charters for disabled students’ tuition. Schweyer said there’s some bipartisan agreement on creating a tiered system in which payments would be tied to a disability’s severity and associated expenses.

Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, who chairs the GOP-controlled upper chamber’s Education Committee, concurred that this tiered system could be on the table, at least when it comes to cyber charters.

“The devil will be in the details, but yes,” he said of the concept.

He also confirmed that some Republicans support bringing back the charter school reimbursement. Because lawmakers are already broadly prepared to make major education investments to satisfy the terms of the landmark 2023 school funding court decision, it’s one of the less politically tricky charter school changes on the table.

“No one’s ox gets gored on that front,” Argall said. “I think we understand that it’s a cost that we need to help school districts.”

A deep well of political challenges

Lawmakers are entering talks on charter school policy with the understanding that areas of consensus are limited.

“We haven’t successfully touched this issue in years,” Argall said. “If we can get a 10% agreement, let’s do 10%, and then we’ll get the other 90%.”

Members largely consider cyber charter schools to lie within that 10%.

Enrollment in these online-only schools has ballooned since the pandemic, making them a particular focus for legislators — especially because despite their lower facilities costs, they’re funded through the same formula that brick-and-mortar charters are.

For instance, some lawmakers, particularly in the GOP, have said they’re open to a tier system for disabled students’ tuition in cyber charters but not necessarily in brick-and-mortar charters. The latter schools are generally larger and more established.

Schweyer, the Democrat, said he favors applying the tiers more broadly, but that “all of this is a hard sell.”

“Sometimes we’ve just got to get as far as we can and measure results before we take a second bite of the apple,” he said.

Charter advocates have agreed to take part in these funding formula discussions, but shy away from any policy change that would lead to a lower tuition share.

Anne Clark, who heads the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said she agrees that the current charter law “doesn’t serve anyone well.” But she thinks cyber charter schools are being used as a scapegoat because “it’s an easy attack,” and said her fundamental position is that charters should get the same share of funding as any traditional public school.

“What I would like to see is a discussion about what it takes to fund students well,” she said.

Inextricable from any conversation about charter school policy is the political and financial pressure it puts on lawmakers. Public school unions exert significant influence on lawmakers via campaign donations, as do charter advocates, particularly ones tied to large, well-established brick-and-mortar schools.

For instance, Vahan Gureghian, who heads Chester-based for-profit charter operator CSMI, doled out nearly $800,000 in the 2022 election season alone. The money primarily went to top legislative Republicans, including state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (she got $125,000 that cycle) and state House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (he received $50,000). Gureghian also gave prodigiously to legislative Republican campaign committees.

Gureghian isn’t the only big charter operator who gives hundreds of thousands to politicians, and the donations are not dictated by party alone. Philadelphia-area Democrats in particular have long had close ties with charter school operators. And though the party has in recent years cut down on the cash it takes from these groups, charter boosters and their allies still have influence.

Education Opportunity PAC, a group focused broadly on school choice — which includes championing state support for private and parochial schools along with charters — gave to a long list of Democrats in 2022. Big names include House Majority Leader Matt Bradford ($15,000 in 2023), Senate Appropriations Minority Chair Vincent Hughes ($30,000 in 2022), and longtime Sen. Anthony Williams (another $30,000 in 2022). Gov. Josh Shapiro also took $10,000 from the committee in 2022.

Education Opportunity gets a significant portion of its funding from other PACs that are funded almost entirely by billionaire Jeffrey Yass, Pennsylvania’s single biggest school choice donor. In 2022, nearly 40% of the PAC’s funds for the cycle came from Yass’ PAC, Students First.

Public sector teachers’ unions like PSEA, meanwhile, concentrate most of their spending on supporting Democrats. Legislative leaders are the biggest beneficiaries of that money — House Speaker Joanna McClinton received $123,500 in the 2022 cycle, Bradford got $90,500, and Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign got the lion’s share of the union’s spending, with $775,000.