http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2012/03/post_213.html
Easton Express-times
Excerpts:
"Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget and the current year's spending plan represent a huge step backward in state education funding, according to state policy experts. And the backlash will hit the wallets of citizens across the state when local school districts in turn hike real estate taxes, said Ron Cowell, president of The Education Policy and Leadership Center, a nonpartisan Harrisburg based nonprofit.
Cowell, along with Sharon Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, on Thursday spoke about the impact of the proposed 2012-13 state budget on Pennsylvania children and families during Moravian College's Family Policy Summit.
Pennsylvania's reliance on local property taxes to fund schools results in major inequities across the state, Ward said. Per pupil spending in the state in 2008-09, the most recent year of data available, ranges from $8,759 per student spent in the Valley View School District to $22,484 per pupil in the Lower Merion School District in suburban Philadelphia, Cowell said.
While Corbett boasts his proposed budget increases funding to public schools by $21.8 million to $6.51 billion, Cowell said all of that money is going to increased Social Security costs. Corbett has abandoned the education funding formula, which looked at student needs and poverty, created and used under Gov. Ed Rendell...For two years, the Legislature and Rendell used stimulus dollars to increase basic education funding and the state share also increased, Cowell said. But Corbett did the same thing when he used $387 million in federal money targeted to save teaching jobs, Cowell said."
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