'Circuit Riders' begin campaign to change school funding

With school funding a hot issue in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, an alliance of state education leaders is starting a campaign to build support for changing the way the state pays its school bills.

During the yearlong campaign, which begins with a televised meeting Tuesday night at 29 intermediate units, 11 "circuit riders" - mostly retired superintendents - will attempt to build support among current superintendents, business managers, and school board members for a movement for education-funding changes, said Jim Buckheit, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.

The coalition, which also includes the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, has received $420,000 from the William Penn Foundation for the project.

The meetings and video conferences at the intermediate units, including ones in Delaware and Chester Counties, are not open to the public.

Education funding in Pennsylvania has been a front-burner issue since 2011, when overall state spending on public schools plunged by roughly $1 billion in Gov. Corbett's first year in office. The reasons for the 2011 drop remain a subject of political debate - Democrats blame Corbett, while the governor pins it on the end of stimulus money from the Obama administration. But there is no dispute that school payrolls have dropped by more than 20,000 and scores of local districts have raised property taxes.

"In real dollars, districts are not getting as much," Buckheit said.

Polls list education as the top concern among voters in the forthcoming election. In one of his sharpest attack ads, Democratic nominee Tom Wolf says Corbett "took an ax" to schools.

Buckheit said the group wants to make sure that school leaders "understand what the dynamics are."

"They're dealing with their own budgets, but they don't understand how state policy impacts" local districts, he said.

Currently, funding is "whatever the legislature says it is each year," he said. "There's no predictability, no stability, and no rational policy."

The group says about 34 percent of school funds come from the state, down from a high of 54 percent in 1974. The national average is 44 percent.

Larry Feinberg, a Haverford Township school board member who is one of the circuit riders, said he would be working "to build support and political will" among educators for a new funding formula.

In June, the 15-member Basic Education Funding Commission was formed to look at a formula that would be based on relative wealth, local tax effort, geographic price differences, enrollment levels, and local support, and come up with recommendations for the General Assembly.

Another coalition - this one consisting of 40 organizations representing educators, business and labor leaders, faith-based organizations, and civic and child-advocacy groups - to address the funding issue is expected to begin operations next week.

Former state lawmaker Kathy Manderino is the campaign manager, and Joan Benso, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a statewide children's advocacy group, is chairing the group's governing body.

"Hopefully, the folks in Harrisburg who are responsible for going through this budget exercise every year will see that enough people are interested in this, and a broad enough array of people are advocating for this, that we'll actually be able to see it happen," said Feinberg.