Chalkbeat

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 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

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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.

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