Capitolwire: Democrats say GOP misleading in education funding debate

By Erin Halasz
Staff Reporter
Source: Capitolwire.com 

HARRISBURG (Sept. 2) - Democratic state officials and education advocates say Republican claims about increases to education funding are vastly exaggerated.

What many Republicans portray as a general-use boost of 11 percent for an average school district's budget, Gov. Ed Rendell, his administration and Democratic legislative allies see as a distorted and even illegal interpretation of what schools can do with $880 million in new federal funds.

Senate Republicans maintain that under their budget proposal, school districts would receive an average increase of 11 percent more than last year's funding.

But many Democratic lawmakers and education advocates have called that claim disingenuous, saying the monetary boost is not the windfall Republicans make it out to be.

Democrats claim that even using the Republican calculations, which they say were derived using insufficient data - read that story - many districts receive far less than the average increase.

Of Pennsylvania's 500 school districts, 38 would see funding increases of 5 percent or less, and 332 would receive increases of 10 percent or less, according to Republican calculations.

More than 60 days into the state budget impasse, education funding remains the biggest point of contention dividing Democrats and Republicans. Up to half of the roughly $700 billion that separates the Democratic spending plan from proposals supported by Republicans involves education.

The general-use basic education subsidy accounts for $300 million of that difference, making it the largest single disputed line item.

Democrats want to use federal stimulus money to increase the subsidy by $300 million, and Senate Republicans would prefer to flat-fund it by replacing $728 million in last year's state spending with stimulus dollars. Under a compromise plan supported by House Republicans, districts would receive a $150 million boost to the basic K-12 education subsidy.

About $880 million in targeted federal funds from the $787 billion federal stimulus package comprise the entire 11 percent increase Senate Republicans have touted. School districts must use the money for specific purposes, such as special education and programs for impoverished students.

That means not all students and schools will benefit from the new money, education advocates and Democrats say.

"The 11 percent increase is a fraud," said Michael Race, spokesman for the state Department of Education. "When they say a school district is getting an 11 percent increase, that entire 11 percent is coming from three [targeted] streams of money. ... It cannot be spent on the entire student body in a school or in a district."

GOP leaders disagree, saying the unexpected influx of cash will be a boon for school districts. Schools can use money from the targeted funding streams to supplant state money that would be spent on those programs, Republican leaders have said

"The fact is they'll be getting more money than they got last year," said Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "More money in the basic education subsidy? No, but more money in a lot of other areas."

Targeted funding, or money for general use?

The money Republicans say would increase basic-education funding comes from three pools of federal money - Title I, Title II-D and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA - that got a boost this year from the $787 billion federal stimulus package.

Pennsylvania will receive $880 million total through the stimulus for Title I, Title II-D and IDEA, in addition to money received through the normal federal budget.

The money is allocated based on formulas that take into account poverty levels, population and the amount of disabled students in an area, among other factors.

All districts will receive a portion of the state's $456 million in stimulus-related IDEA dollars, and all but Montgomery County's Bryn Athyn School District will get some of the $25 million in Title II-D money allocated to Pennsylvania.

The third funding stream, Title I, is allocated based on the number of low-income families in a school district, and about 50 of Pennsylvania's 500 school districts do not have enough impoverished families to receive a share of the commonwealth's $399 million in Title I stimulus funds.

Within the districts that will receive Title I stimulus dollars, some individual schools do not qualify - the money is allocated based on the percentage of low-income students at a school, not in a district.

That means not all schools and districts benefit equally from the targeted stimulus dollars - a point Democratic lawmakers say is important when talking about funding increases.

Just as important, many Democrats say, are the restrictions that come with the money - restrictions on how it can be spent and what it can be spent on.

"To suggest that the school districts are getting this big increase ignores the fact that those dollars ... are intended for special education and Title I," said Ron Cowell, president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center and a former House Education Committee leader. "For the most part there is no flexibility in the use of those dollars."

IDEA funds must be used for special education, and Title II-D money is reserved for technology-related improvements. Title I must be used for programs for low-income children, such as the free and reduced lunch program and after-school tutoring.

While Republican legislators agree that the targeted stimulus money must be used for specific purposes, they have argued that the federal dollars could help pay for programs that now are supported by state and local spending. School administrators could reallocate some of their local and state dollars from Title I- and IDEA-supported programs to programs for all students, Republicans say.

They also argue that federal lawmakers eased some of the restrictions on how the targeted dollars are spent, making it easier for school administrators to swap federal money for state or local money in some instances.

"The increased federal funds should allow, in most if not all cases, the school districts that received those funds to displace state or local money that they would otherwise use to cover those expenses," said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware. "You would've had the [non-federal] expenses to educate Title I students anyway."

Education advocates disagree, saying using the money as Republicans propose would be illegal.

Federal law limits how much of the targeted stimulus money schools can use in place of state and local money.

Only 50 percent of the IDEA funds can be used in place of existing state dollars. The rest must finance new programs or non-recurring costs.

For Title I, the rules are more complicated. Schools are not allowed to use federal funds in place of state funds in most cases. If they want to supplant state money, they must apply for a federal waiver.

Also, federal guidelines encourage schools to use the stimulus money for one-time costs, such as teacher training and curriculum development, rather than for recurring costs such as teacher salaries.

Those who support higher state spending on education say these restrictions undermine Republican claims that what schools are receiving is effectively an all-purpose education-funding boost.

"This whole idea of a 10-percent increase or an 11-percent increase is just a smokescreen because of the restrictions that go with those monies," said Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. "In the end it's a house of cards no matter how many ways they try to portray it."

Reprinted with permission from Capitolwire.com.