Blogging the school district budget
The Philadelphia School District is set to have its first public hearing on the 2012-13 budget tonight, and I'll be livetweeting.
Blogging the school district budget
Kristen Graham
The Philadelphia School District is set to have its first public hearing on the 2012-13 budget tonight, and I'll be livetweeting.
A few bullet points:
-The overall spending plan is $2.5 billion. It contains a $218 million budget gap that will have to be made up through borrowing. The district already spends 10 cents of every dollar on debt service.
-That $218 million gap is an optimistic figure that assumes the mayor's Actual Value Initiative will pass City Council, giving the district $94 million. AVI doesn't have enough votes to pass at the moment, and there's some movement in Council to delay it by a year. The $218 number also assumes that a court decision that would essentially allow charter schools to expand without district approval will be altered.
-The budget banks on $156 million in givebacks from district unions. (Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, has already balked.)
More to come! You can follow along with the live Tweets here. The meeting is also live streamed on the district's website.
Comment removed.
Arlene Ackerman was a great superintendent after all. She taught the kids that the way to be successful is to take advantage of the weak by pretending to "help" them and then ride off into the sunset with their loot.— 2sides2story- Comment removed.
- Fix it as well as the "compassionate conservatism" of the "decider" did.— mick-of-the-moment
- Comment removed.
- How much MORE does the district want the teachers to give back??? How can Corbett allow Philadelphia schools operate with almost no school police and security now because of these budget cuts. They've closed buildings, crammed classes, and made sure that the actual education of the kids comes dead last. What more can they do???— ANGRY AL 2
- 2.5 billion. The state budget for the entire state of PA is like 30 billion— criminal justice prof
- Comment removed.
- How is it that charter schools are able to build state of the art buildings and achieve high PSSA scores at a reduced per pupil allotment?
The district takes a big chunk of the per pupil allocation off the top before it passes the remainder to the charters.
Charters do it for less how can the district blame the charters for the deficit and then try to force them to violate charter school law.
— Philly Truth - @Philly:
You are wrong on several counts. First, charters, especially CMO's, have fundraising as a priority and they need it to provide for renovations and enhanced programs. They do NOT operate programs for less money.
Secondly, just shifting students around the city to some charters does not automatically shift the financial burden of the student to charters. Schools must stay open even when some students leave for charters. This creates a situation where a facility is underutilized but still must remain open because...*there's nowhere else to put the rest of the students* in the short term. It is better if charters take over schools instead of opening new programs because it is easier to predict attendance patterns.
Thirdly, you underestimate how the funding of special programs financially hurts some types of schools more than others. Charters in this city overwhelmingly accept and keep students with Learning Disabilities alone. Few have comprehensive programs for Low Incidence (AS, LSS, MDLSS) and Emotional Support students. Unfortunately, special ed funding comes from a range of sources (city, state, and fed) but funding is NOT tied to student needs. Instead, what districts and charters get is a "pie" and then they are left to carve it up to students. This leaves those with the least disabled at a funding advantage because it costs FAR more to operate AS, LSS, ES.— nikki1231
During the school year, you’ll frequently find her hosting live chats about the district on Philly.com. Please do pass along the scoop about what’s going on at your Philadelphia public school; Kristen welcomes tips, story ideas and witty banter at kgraham@phillynews.com or 215-854-5146.
You can also follow Kristen on Twitter here.
