Shapiro, education and performance so far as governor [View all]

[Deminpenn]

There are a lot of DU threads about Gov Shapiro.

I lived in Phila when Shapiro was just starting his political career and have watched him for awhile. The defining characteristic to me is his pragmatic politics. His religion has never influenced his governance whether as a MontCo commissioer, state rep, in state house leadership, as state attorney general or as governor. In fact, it's never even been an issue in any of his campaigns. There's no debate that Shapiro has methodically plotted his political career. He's a very smooth operator, not meant in a perjorative sense. He is excellent at governing and getting things done. He knows how to make government work to make positive change. I never doubted he'd one day be governor.

I've read many comments about Shapiro and vouchers, but those skate past the complexity of public education in the state. Like most states, PA relies primarily on local property taxes to fund local schools. Predictably, the higher income areas have better schools because property taxes raise more money than in lower income school districts. Although the state gives annual basic education funding, it's relatively meager compared to other states and does little to equalize disparity among schools. Years ago, a lawsuit was filed claiming the school funding formula was unconstitutional. After wending it's way through the state court system, the state supreme court decided the case in favor of the plantiffs that the way schools are funded is unconstitutional. Under Gov Wolf, the state legislature did pass legislation amending the school funding formula, but that formula has only been applied to new basic education funding that is over and above what was already budgeted. For ex, if the basic funding was 100M and new funding is 120M, only the 20M is distributed under the new formula.

Further complicating matters is the Philadelphia school district. It's one of the largest in the US and the only one in the state that is run at the county level since Phila is a city that its own county. Phila has a long tradition of parochial schools and parents opting to send their kids to them rather than to the neighborhood public school for both education and safety reasons. When Paul Vallas was school superintendent, he pushed for charter schools as way to pull students away from parochial schools and back into public schools. There are also some excellent private schools, mostly run by Quakers, just outside Philadelphia. This is why some Democratic legislators from Philadelphia support charter schools and vouchers.

Finally, the charter school law itself is poorly written and contains little accountablity when charter school students fare poorly on standardized tests.

Education isn't just some black and white partisan issue here. Fair funding crosses political and social lines. There are plenty of small school districts in "red" areas of the state that are struggling as much as districts in the old mill towns of western and NE Pa from insuffiicent basic state funding. These districts also lose funding that attaches to each student who enrolls in a charter school. To be honest,
no one really knows how to solve the education problem in light of the state supreme court's ruling.