Phoenix Academy

SDoL Superintendent: Support the call for adequate funding for our schools

The following op-ed, written by School District of Lancaster superintendent Dr. Keith Miles, was originally published in LNP | LancasterOnline on Sunday, April 14.

School boards across Pennsylvania are currently considering their budgets for the upcoming school year, balancing the investments they can make in their educational programs with the burden of real estate taxes on their most vulnerable families.

Their jobs are made more difficult by the state’s comparatively small share of education funding — we rank 45th in the nation, according to the advocacy group PA Schools Work.

That’s one reason the Commonwealth Court ruled last year that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional. The ruling recognized that education is a fundamental right guaranteed by the state constitution to all children, and that constitutional right has been denied for decades in low-wealth districts like the School District of Lancaster, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Why is this important? And what do we mean by “equitable” and “adequate” funding?

Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine you are a teacher in the School District of Lancaster. You are standing in front of a class of 20 students who represent our student body — fascinating young people with amazing stories to tell. Here’s what you should know about your class:

Four of your students do not speak English as their native language. Of these, two are recent immigrants, one of whom is a refugee. The refugee student has significant trauma, and his parents will not let him ride the bus, so he’s often absent.

Four of your students qualify for special education services. Seventeen of your 20 students are economically disadvantaged. One of your students does not have a place to live.

By the end of this school year, you are responsible for guiding these students to meet the state standards for their grade in English language arts and math. But, because of the factors above, five of your students are far behind their grade level in English language arts. Eleven are far behind in math. Nine in English language arts and six in math are just behind grade level. You need to catch these students up.

But six students are on grade level or advanced. They can’t be allowed to fall behind. What do you need to be successful?

You need specially trained teachers who can work individually and in small groups with the students who do not speak English. Learning English is essential to accessing the curriculum.

You need cultural navigators to assist the immigrant and refugee families in understanding the education system and acclimating to life in the United States.

You need specially trained teachers to provide special education services to students who qualify. Depending on the students’ needs, it may take more than one. And these special education teachers need aides to assist in the classrooms, in numbers required by law.

While you teach the standards at your grade level, you need help catching up the students who are behind. For some, a classroom aide can run small groups. But for other students, you again need a specialized teacher to work with them individually in what we call an “academic intervention.”

You need social workers, counselors and therapists available to support families living on low incomes, especially those who are unhoused.

You need strong relationships with community partners to help remove additional barriers, helping families access things like health care and mental health providers, after-school programs, housing and adult literacy programs. You may need a community school director to coordinate all these partnerships — if your district can sustain it in the budget.

All of these strategies are costly. In the School District of Lancaster, we invest more than $20 million annually on things like early childhood education; extended-day, after-school and summer programs; social work and community schools; and college and career supports, including school-to-work programs and college counseling.

We spend more on our programs for English language learners alone than the state basic education funding subsidy given to two-thirds of our neighboring school districts in Lancaster County.

School District of Lancaster taxpayers are doing their part. The district’s “local effort capacity index,” a measure the state uses to determine the local tax burden, is in the top 10% among all Pennsylvania school districts. But not all tax rates are the same.

Due to factors like the amount of tax-exempt property in our district — about 30% of all real estate — we raise approximately $9,600 per student in local taxes. By comparison, the New Hope-Solebury School District, located in Bucks County along the Delaware River, raises nearly $30,000 per student — with a tax rate half of our district’s. (Only 12% of New Hope-Solebury students are economically disadvantaged and fewer than 3% are English language learners.)

This is exactly why the courts and the Basic Education Funding Commission have found Pennsylvania’s funding system to be unconstitutional and inadequate.

The bipartisan commission, made up of state lawmakers from both chambers of the Legislature, has mapped out a seven-year plan to close the gap in state funding for the School District of Lancaster and other low-wealth districts. Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a budget that makes a down payment on this plan. We need our representatives in Harrisburg to step up and make these plans law.

A grassroots advocacy group, POWER Interfaith, is holding a rally Thursday, April 18, to call for adequately and equitably funded public education for all Pennsylvania students. The rally is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in front of J.P. McCaskey High School.

I encourage all taxpayers — in the School District of Lancaster and beyond — to support this call. Our future depends on it.