Yesterday, Governor Wolf gave his budget address and outlined his priorities for 2020-2021. His budget proposal is welcome and reflects Governor Wolf’s continued support for public education. It also reflects the cold, hard reality that the Republican-controlled legislature is unwilling to raise the revenues necessary to provide the funding increases our public schools need.  

Governor Wolf has proposed an increase of $100 million in Basic Education Funding and $25 million in special education funding for K-12 schools. He has also proposed rightsizing tuition for cyber charter schools and special education payments for all charter schools to save districts $280 million. If his proposal is enacted, funding available to public school districts will increase by $405 million through increased state funding and district savings on charter tuition bills.  

Charter School Special Education Proposal

Under current law, charter school special education tuition rates are based on the average special education expenditure of the student’s home district. Tuition rates do not take into account the level of disability of the student enrolled in the charter school or provide funding based on the three cost categories that are used in allocating state special education funding to school districts. 

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The current funding system creates an incentive for charter schools to “over-identify” students with disabilities that require lower-cost support. Schools often collect an excess of $10,000 or more per student than they spend providing services. Charters can then reallocate this excess special education funding and use it to pay for other things.

At the same time, there is a financial disincentive for a charter to enroll a student with a disability that requires more intensive intervention – because the home district’s average expenditure may very likely not cover the charter’s cost to provide the needed services.

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Governor Wolf’s proposal more closely matches the charter school tuition rates with their actual costs. If enacted,  school districts will save $147 million each year and the perverse financial incentive for charters to enroll only students who need low cost services will be eliminated, GOOD NEWS for students with disabilities who want to attend charter schools.

Cyber Charter Proposal

Gov. Wolf’sproposal sets a flat rate for cyber charter school tuition at $9500 per student and applies the special education funding formula to this rate. This very generous (perhaps too generous?) proposal would save school districts $133 million while continuing to provide cyber charter schools with nearly twice the amount it costs school districts to provide students with a full-time education at home on a computer.

Click HERE for a spreadsheet that details what this proposal would mean for each school district.

The charter school industry is already dumping buckets of money into killing Governor Wolf’s commonsense proposals. We are going to need to roll up our sleeves and get to work advocating for at least the $405 million in Governor Wolf’s proposed budget that our school districts need. Look for an email on Friday with more details!

In the meantime, would you make a donation to support Ed Voters’ efforts?

Click HERE to make a donation to support our work getting charter reform across the finish line.

Education Voters of PA is leading a formidable statewide grassroots movement for charter school reform. And we need more resources to meet with more parents and community members, to publish additional reports and fact sheets, and to ensure that charter school issues stay in the media. We have a brief window to get this done and will use every contribution increase our impact.

Click HERE to make a donation.

Please find more details about education funding in Governor Wolf’s budget proposal from our allies at the PA Budget and Policy Center:

Child Care and Early Education

• Early Intervention (EI) is an effective program that helps infants through five-year-olds with developmental delays or difficulties. The 2020-21 budget includes a $2.5 million investment to increase county administrative support for the program and $11 million dollars for 2,000 additional slots for children age 3 to 5.

• Quality child care helps people hold jobs but it has become increasingly unaffordable. So the 2020-21 budget includes a $15.3 million increase in federal funds to Child Care Works base rates to help child care facilities provide services to all.

• The governor also proposed to expand pre-K programs which have a track record of boosting the long-term success of children in many ways. The 2020-21 budget proposes $25 million for Pre-K Counts and $5 million for the Head Start Supplemental Program which will allow about 3,270 additional children to secure places in a good pre-K program.

K-12 Education

• Children in full-day kindergarten programs, have better nutrition and do better in school over the long-term. The governor’s budget proposal calls for providing free, full-day kindergarten for all Pennsylvania students enrolled in public or charter elementary schools.

• The Governor’s budget calls for an addition $405 million in funding for K-12 education. $100 million is added to Basic Education funding via the Fair Funding Formula. There is a $25 million increase in Special Education funding.

• The additional $280 million for school districts is generated by major and very much needed reforms in the Charter School Law. While many charter schools improve education, others have poor academic performance and questionable business practices. And their mostly unregulated growth has become increasingly costly, reducing spending for public schools and driving property taxes higher. The governor proposes to:

• apply the four-tiered Special Education funding formula to all charters to better align Special Education Funding with actual costs of providing services to special education students, saving school districts an estimated $147 million annually; and
  • establish a statewide cyber charter tuition rate of $9,500 per student to align tuition with the actual costs of providing an online education, saving school districts an estimated $133 million annually.

• Governor Wolf again proposes to lift the minimum teacher salary in Pennsylvania to $45,000 up from the $18,500 floor that dates back to the 1980s. This is a necessary step at a time when teacher shortages are becoming more and more common.

Higher Education

• After deep cuts in the Corbett years and slow increases in the last five years, the governor has chosen to make a major investment in higher education, in keeping with the State Board of Education’s goal ensuring that 60% of working-age Pennsylvanians—including those how are historically underrepresented—have a postsecondary degree or credential by 2025. The 2020-21 budget proposes to repurpose $204 million from the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development Trust Fund to support the Nellie Bly Tuition Program, which will provide financial assistance to targeted full-time students in the PASSHE system. The program is designed for students who agrees to stay in Pennsylvania for the same number of years for which they receive the benefit and will convert to a loan if the student moves out of the Commonwealth early.

• To reduce the average $37,000 in loans held by Pennsylvania college students, the governor a $60 million investment in the Pennsylvania State Grant Program, with 30 million in new state funding, matched by $30 million from PHEAA.

• The governor also proposes $12.9 million in additional funding to support the shared IT infrastructure of PASSHE.

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