DN Editorial: $1 million a day

A MILLION dollars a day. Imagine what a different place the Philadelphia School District might be in with $1 million more a day. Not only could schools have counselors, nurses, art teachers, music teachers and libraries, but the district's management priorities would shift to academic progress rather than the panicked lurch from one crisis to the next.

And yet $1 million a day - $360 million a year - is roughly what the Philadelphia School District would have in its budget if a 2008 plan for fairer funding of Pennsylvania schools had been kept in place. This is based on an estimate by John Myers, of APA Consulting, the firm that did the original school "costing out" study for the state. His estimate of $360 million that "might have been" came during a school funding symposium held in City Hall last week; many experts claim that that's way too low a figure.

The costing-out study was a milestone; the first time that Pennsylvania had attempted to assess what it actually would cost to properly educate its children, accounting for factors such as size of district, amount of poverty, number of English-language learners and other factors that drive up the cost of education. Instead, the schools, including Philadelphia's, rely on property values for their local funding, and receive state funding based on a combination of politics and mystery. And that approach ends up shortchanging districts, like ours, that need money most. (The original costing-out study found that Pennsylvania public schools are underfunded by $4.38 billion.) More importantly, it keeps an inherently inequitable system in place: one that promises a good education if you live in a rich district, and a bad education if you live in a poor one.

The 2008 study resulted in a $274 million bump to education funding under Gov. Ed Rendell; those increases were subsequently cut by Gov. Corbett, in 2011. The state now falls far short of the amount it contributes to the schools compared to other states. And, we're one of only three states that don't have a proper funding formula.

Too often, the district's never-ending crises - it is currently trying to fill a deficit of more than $300 million - are blamed on bad management of its money, but that's a convenient narrative that lets elected officials off the hook and diverts attention from the damaging effects of their failure to take education seriously.

At last week's symposium, a representative from the Education Law Center, in New Jersey, provided an eye-opening history of New Jersey's funding formula and the impact it has had on achievement. The bottom line: More money does make a difference.

Is Pennsylvania satisfied with trailing New Jersey? Maybe a little more competition among the states on how well they educate their children would be healthy. Though since each state has different standards and measures, such comparisons are nearly impossible. With such a fractured nationwide system, how do we know what's working?

Surely we know what's not working: forcing schools across the state to focus on begging and cutting rather than on academics and excellence. Without a proper funding formula, Pennsylvania isn't even in the game.