Phila. school advocates take aim at aid cuts

HARRISBURG - As shock waves over the Philadelphia School District's forecast of teacher layoffs reverberated through the city, the battle to restore some cuts in state aid was already under way in the Capitol.

Gov. Corbett's plan to trim that aid by nearly $300 million has sent the already cash-strapped district into more desperate straits, with officials saying they would have to slash 3,800 jobs - including 1,260 teaching positions - as well as full-day kindergarten.

Now, with two months until the deadline for completing the state budget, the campaign to restore funding falls largely to Mayor Nutter and other city officials, lobbyists, and Philadelphia's dwindling number of power brokers in the halls of the legislature.

"This is not a game," Nutter said Thursday in an interview from Chicago, where he was attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting.

"Kindergarten, from my perspective, is the fundamental element of any well-functioning school system," said Nutter, who plans to visit Harrisburg on Monday to talk city finances with legislators.

Corbett, in his budget address last month, proposed slashing basic education aid by $1.2 billion as part of his effort to offset the state government's $4 billion deficit.

"This is a difficult, difficult budget, and recovery is never painless," Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said of the Philadelphia school cuts. "He doesn't like this budget, but it has to be done. We can't continue to tax and spend our way to prosperity."

School districts around the state have responded by canceling music and art programs or considering wage freezes and teacher layoffs. Some legislators said Philadelphia schools, too, must make tough choices.

Sen. Jake Corman (R., Centre), chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, said he was sympathetic to the schools' plight but thought the district, like others, could have prepared better for the day when federal stimulus money dried up.

"All school districts were shielded from the recession because of stimulus funding," Corman said. "Philadelphia does pretty well, and it has gotten significantly more than just what the funding formula allowed, because of the clout it had in Harrisburg."

His use of the past tense was telling. Elections, retirements, and prosecutions have stripped the city of some of its most influential voices in the Capitol.

Corman has said Republicans will push to restore some education funding, but the priority is higher education, which took a $550 million hit in Corbett's proposal and did not enjoy the increased funding that public schools received under the Rendell administration.

The idea that higher education might be pitted against elementary and high schools in the budget negotiations angered some lawmakers.

"What my argument has always been, you can't separate basic education from higher education," Rep. James Roebuck (D., Phila.), the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee. "Unless you have schools that produce students that come out in 12th grade able to do college-level work, it doesn't do any good to admit them into college."

City advocates moved quickly to ramp up efforts in Harrisburg - particularly for restoration of funds used for full-day kindergarten.

City Council on Thursday unanimously passed member Jannie L. Blackwell's resolution urging Corbett and the legislature to preserve funding for full-day kindergarten.

Blondell Reynolds Brown, vice-chair of Council's education committee, said the city should intensify efforts to raise its own revenues, such as stepping up collection of delinquent property taxes, but cannot "let Gov. Corbett and the state legislature off the hook when it comes to additional resources for our schoolchildren."

Word of the proposed cut in grants used for kindergarten drove former Gov. Ed Rendell back into the political fray, even after he'd vowed to stay on the sidelines.

"Any time we cut education funding, it's tragic," Rendell said in an interview Thursday, "and particularly in Philadelphia's case, because the progress has been so phenomenal. It's the one program that should be saved, in my judgment, and I'm going to lobby as hard as I can with the legislature."

Though Rendell vowed to refrain from commenting on his successor's administration when he left office in January, he said he would write to every legislator to urge that the $275 million block grants that have largely funded full-day kindergarten be restored.

Donna Cooper, Rendell's former chief policy adviser, cited marked improvement in third-grade standardized test scores in districts that used the money for full-day kindergarten.

Cutting that funding is "not in step with the nation, in terms of what we know is important for kids," said Cooper, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Philadelphia's one remaining power broker in Harrisburg, State Sen. Vincent Hughes, said he would argue that the state should help balance its budget by taxing extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale - something Corbett has vowed not to do. "The state should put up the money to help public education," said Hughes (D., Phila.). "We are fighting actively to stop the obliteration of programs."

Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), who this year lost his post as appropriations chairman in a Democratic caucus vote, said the city's 26 representatives could still be a strong voice - albeit in a 203-member, Republican-controlled House.

"This is far from over," he said. "We still have the numbers in the delegation. And every member will be important."