Architects draw up blood-donation game plan

Plymouth Council says roads will be paved

<b>First Posted:</b> 11/28/2007<br><br>By Mark Guydish mguydish@www.timesleader.comEducation Reporter 
PLYMOUTH &amp;ndash; John Augenblick stressed Tuesday night that the education &amp;ldquo;Costing Out&amp;rdquo; study his firm conducted for the state legislature was not intended to figure out how to spend money on schools, or how much to spend on pre-kindergarten. 

Still, he and his fellow researches &amp;ldquo;couldn&amp;rsquo;t resist&amp;rdquo; making a few suggestions. 
Given that the researchers themselves &amp;ndash; Denver-based Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc. &amp;ndash; couldn&amp;rsquo;t resist looking at questions that went beyond their contract mandated, it&amp;rsquo;s small surprise that audience questions after a review of the report often turned toward things that weren&amp;rsquo;t in the report.
The primary goal of the study, Augenblick explained, was to determine how much money must be spent to teach all public school children everything the state requires, and the answer was: a lot more. Overall, the state would have to spend $4.6 billion more in a single year, or a total of $21.86 billion, based on 2005-06 data.
Despite the fact that Augenblick had stressed his company was not asked to find where that kind of money might come from, the first question was, &amp;ldquo;Where are those funds available?&amp;rdquo; 
&amp;ldquo;We have no idea,&amp;rdquo; Augenblick answered.
However, a note in the study showed Pennsylvania&amp;rsquo;s &amp;ldquo;tax burden&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; the amount of money collected in state and local taxes compared to total wealth &amp;ndash; is lower than neighboring states. If it were raised to the same level, the extra income would just about cover that $4.6 billion. 
But whether that tax burden was increased by raising local or state taxes would be entirely up to the legislature. 
 Asked if he had an opinion about how the state should make such calculations, Augenblick replied, &amp;ldquo;We had a whole lot more to say if asked, but we weren&amp;rsquo;t.&amp;rdquo;
Relevant facts
 The study did find two relevant facts, though. 
First, the formula the state uses in doling out its money &amp;ldquo;seems to work well.&amp;rdquo; Poorer districts and districts with high-cost students such as those in special education get more money while wealthy districts with low-risk students get less. 
But local tax dollars work in the opposite way, with poorer districts spending less money on higher-risk students than wealthier districts. 
Since, on average, local taxes cover about two-thirds of the cost of education, Augenblick said, this creates big inequalities between districts. 
While the study, mandated by the state legislature, wasn&amp;rsquo;t set up to devise a new formula for funding schools, many advocates are hoping it is a springboard for just such a change.
Augenblick said the study itself offers a template that could be used &amp;ldquo;as a starting point,&amp;rdquo; increasing funding by different amounts for special education, English Language Learners, low-income and gifted students. The study also accounted for differences in regional cost of living, district size, and changes in enrollment.
Social activities included
Asked if the study included the cost of &amp;ldquo;social activities&amp;rdquo; such as cheerleading and football, Justin Silverstein, a senior associate at Augenblick who did much of the number crunching, said yes. 
What it did not include was construction costs, adult education and food service. In the case of that last one, he said most school finance officers believe it should pay for itself, either through federal subsidies for breakfasts and lunches served to low-income children, or through the purchase price paid by other students.
Augenblick and Silverstein were accompanied by Robert Feir, who had served as liaison between the company and the state during the study, and who noted that the state Senate and House are considering a resolution to form a four-member commission to review the findings and &amp;ldquo;propose at least two recommendations for revised funding.&amp;rdquo; 
During a meeting earlier in the day at The Times Leader, Feir said the study had cost about $645,000. He also said that, though pessimistic for much of his 26 years in Harrisburg pushing for funding reform, this study had the potential to make it a reality, in part because it and two other recent studies on reducing education costs were all requested by the legislature. 
&amp;ldquo;None of which needed to be done,&amp;rdquo; Feir said at the afternoon meeting, &amp;ldquo;and all of which are just going to cause trouble for them because now they have data on which to base decisions.&amp;rdquo;
State Board of Education Member Mollie O&amp;rsquo;Donnell Phillips introduced and closed the public night meeting, noting that districts face new mandated goals in a number of areas thanks to the federal No Child Left Behind law.
 &amp;ldquo;It&amp;rsquo;s time we had some idea of what it costs to get where we are going,&amp;rdquo; she said. &amp;ldquo;We&amp;rsquo;ve never had that. And we&amp;rsquo;ve never had these kinds of mandates.&amp;rdquo;

    

Mark Guydish, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 829-7161.

Study: Schools require $4.6B