Philly’s school problems a cautionary tale of federal stimulus

8/22/2014

Source: PA.gov

FEDERAL STIMULUS: Thanks to the federal stimulus program, local school districts in Pennsylvania got a quick boost of cash. But with the money now gone, the districts have had to try to keep up the same level of funding.

As financial problems plague the Philadelphia city public school system and politicians at the state level cast blame, the specter of federal stimulus has come to bear.

At the end of last week, parents and students across Philadelphia County were relieved to hear classes would not start later because of an $81 million budget shortfall, as school officals discussed. Instead, schools will open as planned Sept. 8 but at severely reduced capacity.

“For the sake of minimizing disruptions for families and for the sake of educating children, we have made the decision to make a series of additional difficult, and hopefully temporary, cuts in order to open schools up on time,” said Philadelphia Superintendent William H. Hite in a news conference last week.

Among these are undoing guaranteed busing for students within two miles of each school and a reduction on the numbers of custodians on the premises and police officers managing security, according to Hite.

Though the fiscal problem this year appears to show a lack of immediate funding, the problem lies in how the school district structured its large influx of cash from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a hallmark of Barack Obama’s early presidency. That is borne out by the subsequent cuts in the state’s funding, which have now put Philadelphia schools in a bind.

From 2009-11, Pennsylvania got more than $1.3 billion in federal stimulus dollars toward education, almost half going directly to the Philadelphia School District. According to the state treasurer’s office, the district received $435 million in federal stimulus for education in those two years.

Source: Factcheck.org

This graph shows the gap Source: Factcheck.org

At the end of 2011, once the stimulus funds were all but gone, the school district received $11 million in federal grants as a result of the “Race to the Top” program, an initiative to empower local schools to meet federal standards in student achievement.

As funding increased, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell decided to cut back the state’s allocation to education funding by $350 million, allowing nearly $650 million in federal money to fill the gap.

The result was a complete warping of educational funding; state contributions fell but the overall amount schools received in those years went up, as the Pennsylvania Independent reported.

With such plentiful taps of federal money poured in over the years, it’s no wonder budget problems have appeared now that the money has run dry.

Rather than rely on generous stimulus and grants from the federal government, Pennsylvania’s school districts have had turn to the state as the donor of last resort.

That has put current Gov. Tom Corbett in the hot seat, with opponents such as theteachers unions and Democratic Gubernatorial hopeful Tom Wolf calling attention to the gap in money allocated for education. Corbett’s ads have claimed the Keystone State has never had more money spent on education, a claim held true if teacher pensions are factored in, as the graph above shows.

Despite these facts and the unfortunate suffering of the children of Philadelphia, it’s certain to become a political issue more than anything.

Whatever the fate of Philadelphia’s schools this year, let us remember the ghost of federal stimulus.

source