School spending worked, data show

By Donna Cooper

Gov. Corbett claims the state's coffers are empty even though this year's tax collections are half a billion dollars higher than expected. And he refuses to tax companies benefiting from the Marcellus Shale gas boom despite the staggering profits of players such as Exxon Mobil.

Now the governor is arguing that the state has nothing to show for its investments in public education over the last eight years. Here again, the facts simply don't back up what Corbett is saying and doing.

CNBC, for example, ranked Pennsylvania fourth in the nation in education in its Top States for Business survey last year. That would not have been possible eight years ago.

Over the past eight years, the share of Pennsylvania students performing at or above grade level on state tests has risen at the same rate as state funding for public schools. The proportion of students with especially high scores doubled in that period, while the share scoring as years behind was cut nearly in half. And in the 50 school districts where the majority of students didn't pass the tests in 2002 - and where state investments increased the most - the number of students performing at or above grade level grew by a stunning 41 percent on average.

The Center for Education Policy, a moderate Washington think tank, found that Pennsylvania was the only state in the nation to make significant progress in reading and math skills in every grade tested between 2002 and 2008. And Education Week, the nation's most respected education periodical, which ranks states' performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found that Pennsylvania made remarkable strides last year - even in middle school, where it's hardest to get results.

There's more:

In 2003, 11 states beat Pennsylvania in eighth-grade reading. In 2010, the state had the best scores in the nation.

The commonwealth made progress in eighth-grade math as well. In 2003, 16 states showed better results than Pennsylvania in that area. Now only seven are doing better than we are.

The state made enormous progress in fourth-grade results, too. In 2003, eight states outperformed Pennsylvania in fourth-grade math; in 2009, the commonwealth was among the top four performers in the nation.

In fourth-grade reading in 2003, 14 states were demonstrating better results than Pennsylvania's. Today we are in the top six.

These gains were not magic. They were the product of targeted spending to train teachers, tutor nearly 80,000 students, reduce class sizes for more than 70,000 students in the first through third grades, expand full-day kindergarten to include 83,000 more children, and enroll 70,000 more children in high-quality early-childhood education.

We still have a long way to go. Too many students don't make it through the state's education system, and too many others don't have the skills to show for it when they do.

But wise men learn from history. And when it comes to public education, Pennsylvania's eight years of improvement are the envy of the nation. The data show that nothing will be gained by undoing the reforms of the past eight years.

Corbett and others are using revisionist history to try to rationalize radical cuts to public education, sending districts in Philadelphia and elsewhere scrambling. But he and his fellow revisionists are dead wrong.

We can meet our education challenges only through additional investments in practices known to boost success. Pennsylvania has eight years of proof that a smart, investment-oriented strategy works. We need to build on that strategy, not tear it down.