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Here are the top 40 EITC recipients for FY
17-18
Just a quick heads-up that the PA Ed
Policy Roundup will be offline tomorrow while we are attending and speaking at
the PA Association of Rural and Small Schools Conference. We plan to be back
online on Friday.
Education
Committee Chairman Curt Sonney’s Cyber Charter Funding Reform Bill HB526 now
has over 50 cosponsors
Has your state representative cosponsored HB526?
Has
your state senator cosponsored SB34?
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Blogger commentary: While the
legislature seems comfortable telling students in our most underfunded
districts that they will just have to wait 20 years to have the resources
prescribed by the legislature’s own basic education funding formula, Speaker
Turzai is championing a $100 million increase in the cap for diverted tax dollars
going to private and religious schools via the EITC and OSTC programs along
with an automatic escalator in future years.
The data below are from the Department
of Community and Economic Development (DCED), which administers these programs.
By law, there is virtually no fiscal or academic performance accountability
associated with these programs.
Accountability seems to be something that is reserved for our regular
public schools.
Here are the top 40 EITC
recipients for FY 17-18. While most of them are affiliated with
religious organizations, some are cream of the crop prestigious main line
private schools.
The full list has about 1170 recipients
who received a total of about $139 million; the separate OSTC program has about
185 recipients receiving about $52 million.
|
EITC Organization
|
Contributions Received
|
|
Business Leadership Organized for Catholic
Schools (BLOCS) - SO
|
$
18,562,407
|
|
Foundation for Jewish Day Schools of Greater
Philadelphia - SO
|
$
7,906,130
|
|
Pittsburgh Jewish Educational Improvement
Foundation
|
$
4,605,811
|
|
Faith Builders Educational Programs, Inc. -
SO
|
$
3,755,819
|
|
Scholastic Opportunity Scholarship Fund (SOS)
- SO
|
$
3,372,774
|
|
Neumann Scholarship Foundation - SO
|
$
3,024,539
|
|
Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia
|
$
2,253,335
|
|
STAR Foundation - SO
|
$
2,096,761
|
|
Central Pennsylvania Scholarship Fund - SO
|
$ 2,052,516
|
|
Bridge Educational Foundation - SO
|
$
1,957,018
|
|
Eastern Pennsylvania Scholarship Foundation -
Diocese of Allentown - SO
|
$
1,790,865
|
|
Mennonite Foundation, Inc., The - SO
|
$
1,757,868
|
|
Henkels Foundation - SO
|
$
1,366,658
|
|
ACSI Children's Education Fund d/b/a
Children's Tuition Fund of Pennsylvania - SO
|
$
1,188,285
|
|
The Episcopal Academy
|
$
1,068,723
|
|
Friends Council on Education
|
$
1,033,833
|
|
Second Century Scholarship Fund - SO
|
$
946,736
|
|
Pittsburgh Jewish Pre-Kindergarten
Educational Improvement Foundation
|
$
940,444
|
|
Shady Side Academy - SO
|
$
905,841
|
|
Central Pennsylvania Scholarship Fund - EIO
|
$
903,000
|
|
The Delphi Project Foundation
|
$
833,333
|
|
Bravo Foundation, Inc. - SO
|
$
818,499
|
|
Project H.O.M.E.
|
$
785,258
|
|
Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School
|
$
779,073
|
|
Silverback Educational Foundation for the
Arts, Dance & Athletics
|
$
773,333
|
|
Foundation for Jewish Day Schools of Greater
Philadelphia - PKSO
|
$
764,432
|
|
Business Leadership Organized for Catholic
Schools (BLOCS) - PKSO
|
$
750,111
|
|
PJHS Scholarship Organization (St. Joe's Prep & Scranton Prep)
|
$
743,625
|
|
Logos Academy Scholarship Organization
|
$
743,500
|
|
Agnes Irwin School
|
$
671,928
|
|
Penngift Foundation, Inc. - SO
|
$
668,082
|
|
Children's Scholarship Fund of Pennsylvania -
SO
|
$
628,950
|
|
Commonwealth Charitable Management, Inc. -
EIO
|
$
628,862
|
|
Foundation for Catholic Education
|
$
577,510
|
|
KIPP Administrative Services Corporation
|
$
558,273
|
|
3890 North 10th Street, Inc. d/b/a The
Lenfest Center - EIO
|
$
542,000
|
|
Erie Catholic Preparatory School d/b/a
Cathedral Prep and Villa Maria Academy
|
$
533,950
|
|
Joey F. Casey Memorial Foundation
|
$
522,500
|
|
Diocese of Scranton Scholarship Foundation -
SO
|
$
518,935
|
HB800: EITC/OSTC: Pennsylvania’s secret school tax is
about to get raised again | Editorial
The Inquirer Editorial
Board Updated: April 30, 2019 - 6:08 AM
It’s not hard for
property owners in Pennsylvania to find out what portion of their tax bill goes
to schools. They may think that’s all they pay to support education, but they’d
be wrong. A secret school tax is not only funded by all taxpayers, but has been
steadily increasing. And a new
bill sponsored by Republican Speaker Mike Turzai that passed the House Education Commission Monday will increase this
stealth tax even more. The Educational
Improvement Tax Credit allows
corporations to help underwrite tuitions to private and parochial schools
instead of paying their tax to the state. Paired with a related program, the
Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit, the two programs have grown from $35.7
million nine years ago to $160 million last year. Turzai’s
bill would raise
the amount of total tax credits by $100 million. Along with a third program
that provides tax-credit funding for pre-K and extracurricular activities, the
total cost will rise from $210 million to $310 million — with a built-in hike
each year after a certain threshold is reached. The EITC/OSTC is
often called a “voucher lite” program because it diverts tax revenues to go
directly to families in the form of scholarships and tuition payments for
private and parochial schools. It is supposedly targeted to low- and
middle-income families, but the maximum annual income for participating
families will, under the bill, be raised from $85,000 to $95,000. That maximum
rises with each additional child from a single family that takes advantage of
the program. The salary max is nearly three times that for families of some
special-education students. In no country in this world is a $285,000 salary
considered “middle income.”
“Pennsylvania ranks among the lowest in
the nation for adequate funding for elementary and secondary education. There
is also has a tremendous gap between the rich and poor districts, according to
information in the resolution.
“Pennsylvania ranks 46th among the 50
states in the amount of state subsidies allocated to support elementary and
secondary education, among the lowest in the nation, with state’s share of
funding public education at 38 percent; and Pennsylvania has the widest funding
gap between wealthy and poor school districts of any state in the country,”
Gilbert said as she read the resolution.
The one-page resolution also said the
state has “failed to keep pace with the rising cost of mandated special
education for students with disabilities.”
According to its statistics, the costs
for special education for students with disabilities have increased by $1.6
billion over the last decade. But, the state’s share has fallen from 36 percent
to 25 percent.”
Lower Merion school board joins other districts asking
for fair school funding
Delco Times By
Richard Ilgenfritz rilgenfritz@21st-centurymedia.com @rpilgenfritz on Twitter
LOWER MERION — The
Lower Merion Board of School Directors this week joined a growing chorus of
school boards across the region to pass resolutions asking for increases in
funding for lower-income districts across Pennsylvania. The resolution grew out
of a board legislative committee meeting April 1 when some area state
representatives attended. The meeting was designed to discuss state legislative
issues. Along with the politicians, representatives from Public Citizens for
Children and Youth were there to discuss the fair funding issue. “We had a
robust discussion about several issues. The first of which was the current fair
funding initiative underway across Pennsylvania and this is an effort to fund a
fair funding formula so districts that don’t have the ability to raise enough
local resources to support public education at an adequate level would receive
more funding and create more equitable funding for all public education
students across the state,” said board member Laurie Actman, chairwoman of the
district’s legislative committee.
The resolution was
read into the record by Melissa Gilbert, board president. “Whereas,
Pennsylvania’s more than 1.7 million public school students deserve the highest
quality education; and the state’s public schools work best when they have the
resources to give all students the opportunities they need to succeed,”
according to the resolution.
State education chief to present plan
May 16
meeting set on Erie School District’s finances
Erie Times By Ed
Palattella ed.palattella@timesnews.com
The Erie school
directors will be able to go straight to the top if they have any questions
about the final version of the Erie School District’s state-mandated financial
improvement plan. State Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera is scheduled to
present the plan to the School Board at a public meeting on May 16 at 5:30 p.m.
inthe auditorium at East Middle School, 1001 Atkins St. The School Board
announced Rivera’s visit on Monday, during a special board meeting that
included the approval of the sale of the former Wayne School. The press
secretary for the Department of Education, Rick Levis, confirmed Rivera’s
visit. The district’s statea ppointed financial administrator, Charles Zogby,
has been working on the fiveyear improvement plan for more than a year. Zogby
on Jan. 31 submitted a 54-page first version to the state Department of
Education, and Rivera on March 19 asked Zogby to revise several areas of the
plan to include clearer directives. Zogby has been working with the department
since then, though he and Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito said they
expect the final version to include no major changes. The draft plan
recommended that the School Board, among other things, at some point consider
outsourcing the district’s janitorial services to save money.
Radnor, Strath Haven rank among US News top 10 high
schools in Pa.
Delco Times By Kevin Tustin
ktustin@21st-centurymedia.com April 30, 2019
Radnor and Strath
Haven high schools earned highest marks among county schools in U.S. News and
World Report’s annual rankings of secondary education institutions. The
publication’s 2019 Best High Schools Rankings places Radnor at number 3 in
Pennsylvania and 237 in the nation, with Strath Haven not too far behind at
number 6 in Pennsylvania and 323 in the national rank. Radnor earned an overall
score of 98.63 with recorded academic achievements of 73 percent of students
taking at least on Advanced Placement exam (85 percent passing at least one of
those exams), mathematics and reading proficiency at 91 percent or higher, and
a graduation rate of 99 percent. Additionally, Radnor was also ranked as the
156th top STEM school in the nation. “A thriving school system depends on a
range of people working together to provide students the greatest opportunities
for success and a solid support network to help them pursue these
opportunities,” said Radnor Director of Communications Michael Petitti. “We are
fortunate in Radnor to have caring adults at all levels who are truly dedicated
to positively shaping the futures of young people. We are also fortunate to
have pretty special students.
Lampeter-Strasburg, Manheim Township among U.S. News'
best high schools
Lancaster Online by
ALEX GELI | Staff
Writer Apr 30,
2019
For the first time
in five years, there’s a new top-ranked high school in Lancaster County. U.S.
News & World Report on Tuesday released its annual Best High Schools
list, which
ranks Lampeter-Strasburg High School atop the county’s 18 public high schools
and 53rd in the state. The county’s top 5 also includes Manheim Township (62nd
in the state), Conestoga Valley (85th), Hempfield (89th) and Cocalico (100th). Penn
Manor, the reigning
champion since
2015, dropped to sixth place. U.S. News has published high school rankings
since 2007. Using data from sources such as the U.S. Department of Education
and The College Board, it scores high schools from zero to 100 based on student
performance in reading and math state assessments, graduation rates and student
success on advanced placement and International Baccalaureate tests. With help
from the North Carolina-based social science research firm RTI International,
the magazine evaluated nearly every public high school in the nation — more
than 17,000 this year, up from more than 2,700 last year.
Paul Muschick: Allentown high school deserves 'A' for
developing next generation of voters
By PAUL MUSCHICK | THE MORNING CALL | APR 30, 2019 | 7:35 PM
I lamented last week that too many people blow off elections and don’t bother
to vote. For whatever reason, they don’t think it’s important. Maybe efforts
like one at an Allentown high school can reduce that apathy over time. Students
and staff at Building 21 were honored Monday by the state for its student voter
registration drive. The drive signed up 58 students, representing 87 percent of
the students who were eligible to register. That earned the school a gold level
Governor’s Civic Engagement Award. “You can almost view registering to vote as
a final exam,” said Shannon Salter, Building 21′s founding social studies
teacher who advised the students. “Registering to vote should be as exciting as
getting a driver’s license or anything else they do as they come of a certain
age.” Salter and three students — seniors Jelissa Santiago, Keitly Ramirez, and
Destiny Santiago — received the award Monday at a ceremony at the Pennsylvania
State Museum in Harrisburg. Building
21, a unique
high school that allows students to work at different levels under personalized
plans while in the same classes, is only four years old. So this was the first
year there was a senior
class and
enough students who were old enough to have a registration drive.
Gov. Wolf joins regional leaders at event to discuss
rural broadband crisis
Centre Daily Times BY SARAH PAEZ APRIL 24, 2019 10:51 AM, UPDATED APRIL 24, 2019 09:21 PM
STATE COLLEGE - With the rollout of Gov. Tom Wolf’s broadband initiative aimed at
providing high-speed internet to every household and business in Pennsylvania,
and the recent launch of 5G wireless technology, the rural
broadband crisis is
gaining the attention of leaders all around the country. Wolf provided opening
remarks Wednesday morning at the Pennsylvania Priorities Summit, a Centre Daily
Times and McClatchy-led panel discussion on the rural broadband crisis and
potential solutions held at The State Theatre. Later in the day, he stopped by
Penns Valley Area High School to talk with students about their challenges
accessing broadband to do schoolwork. “Broadband is absolutely essential to
life in the 21st century. If we don’t have it, that’s a problem,” said Wolf. Not
having broadband, he said, limits Pennsylvanians’ ability to do business, apply
for jobs, complete schoolwork and attract new businesses and economic
development to the state. Over 6% of Pennsylvania’s population — about 800,000
people — reportedly lack access to broadband, most concentrated in rural areas.
State College Area School Board Moves Forward with
Proposed Budget, Tax Increase
StateCollege.com by Geoff Rushton on April 30, 2019 9:56 AM
State College Area School Board on Monday unanimously approved a proposed 2019-20 budget, including a 1.95 percent property tax increase. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for May 28, with a final vote scheduled for June 3. The planned property tax increase is below the state's Act 1 inflation index limit of 2.3 percent and is a smaller increase than the 2.4 percent hike in the 2018-19 budget. With the tax increase, the district's millage rate would increase to 46.0875. The average district taxpayer with an assessed residential property value of $81,128 would see a tax increase of $72 for a total tax due of $3,739 in 2019-20, according to a memo from district administrators to the board.
State College Area School Board on Monday unanimously approved a proposed 2019-20 budget, including a 1.95 percent property tax increase. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for May 28, with a final vote scheduled for June 3. The planned property tax increase is below the state's Act 1 inflation index limit of 2.3 percent and is a smaller increase than the 2.4 percent hike in the 2018-19 budget. With the tax increase, the district's millage rate would increase to 46.0875. The average district taxpayer with an assessed residential property value of $81,128 would see a tax increase of $72 for a total tax due of $3,739 in 2019-20, according to a memo from district administrators to the board.
Philly’s Teacher Action Group celebrates 10th birthday
A look back
on a decade of building community and emphasizing social justice.
The notebook by Greg Windle April 30 — 3:24 pm, 2019
Educators gathered
Saturday, April 27, to celebrate the 10th birthday of the Teacher Action Group
(TAG), bringing cake and dancing to its annual Education for Liberation
conference. Held at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures (FACTS) Charter School in
Chinatown, the day began with a panel of educator-activists talking about the
history of the group and the various projects it has helped found. Anissa
Weinraub, a TAG co-founder, said the group was started as a response to
educational injustice. “We were dealing with our racist state government that
had been shortchanging our public schools for decades,” said Weinraub, a
veteran city teacher who now runs the Academy at
Palumbo’s theater program. “And
we were under the No Child Left Behind regime … where high-stakes standardized
testing was used to sort and label our schools as failures and blame our
‘underachievement’ on our schools, even though we were incredibly
under-resourced.”
Girls outpace boys on national technology and engineering
exam
Washington Post Answer Sheet By Valerie Strauss May 1 at 6:00 AM
If you put a lot of
stock in standardized test results, and if you think the U.S. National
Assessment of Educational Progress is a useful snapshot of student achievement,
these results will interest you: Newly released scores on NAEP’s 2018
Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) exam, which is administered every
four years, found that America’s eighth-graders scored overall two points
higher than they did in 2014 — and that girls outpaced boys. NAEP is often
referred to as “the nation’s report card” or the “gold standard” in student
assessment because it is seen as the most consistent, nationally representative
measure of U.S. student achievement since the 1990s and because it is supposed
to be able to assess what students “know and can do.” Critics say that its benchmarks are not scientifically valid. The
one-hour TEL assessment was given to 15,400 eighth-graders from 600 schools on
laptops between January and March 2018. According to the new results, female
eighth-graders in 2018 not only scored higher than their male peers overall,
but also scored higher than their male peers in more content areas and
practices compared with 2014. Girls did better than boys in 2014, too, by three
percentage points, but in 2018, the difference widened to five percentage
points.
School Funding Briefing Thursday, May 23, 2019 6:30 –
8:00 PM
Drexel Hill Middle School, 3001 State Road,
Drexel Hill, PA 19026
In 2019, the Public
Interest Law Center is celebrating 50 years of fighting for justice, and
preparing for 50 more, through a series of 50th anniversary events.
As part of this
series, the Upper Darby School Board is pleased to host the Public Interest Law
Center at Drexel Hill Middle School on Thursday, May 23rd, for a School Funding
Briefing.
Pennsylvania has
the largest funding gap in the country between low-wealth and high-wealth
school districts. Pennsylvania is also ranked 46th in the share of funding that
comes from the state, leaving local taxpayers to take on rising costs. How did
we get here? At the briefing, you will learn the basics of education funding
and how it works in Pennsylvania, as well as ways you can get involved in
advocacy for fully funded public education. You will also learn about the
latest developments in the Law Center's school
funding lawsuit.
Afterward, you will
have a chance to meet Law Center attorneys working on this landmark case, as
well as mingle with other interested in Pennsylvania education.
Do you have strong communication and leadership skills and a vision for
PSBA? Members interested in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged
to submit an Application for Nomination no later than
May 31 to PSBA's Leadership Development Committee (LDC).
The nomination process: All persons seeking nomination for elected
positions of the Association shall file with the Leadership Development
Committee chairperson an Application for Nomination (.PDF) on a form to be
provided by the Association expressing interest in the office sought. The
Application for nomination shall be marked received at PSBA Headquarters or
mailed first class and postmarked no later than the application deadline
specified in the timeline established by the Governing Board to be considered
timely-filed.” (PSBA
Bylaws, Article IV, Section 6.E.). Application Deadline: May 31, 2019
Open positions are:
- 2020 President-Elect
(one-year term)
- 2020 Vice
President (one-year term)
- 2020-22
Central At-Large Representative – includes Sections 2, 3, 6, and
7 (three-year term)
- 2020-21
Sectional Advisors – includes Sections 1, 3, 5 and 7 (two-year term)
PSBA Tweet March
12, 2019 Video Runtime: 6:40
In this installment of #VideoEDition, learn about legislation
introduced in the PA Senate & House of Representatives that would save
millions of dollars for school districts that make tuition payments for their
students to attend cyber charter schools.http://ow.ly/RyIM50n1uHi
PSBA Summaries of Senate Bill 34 and House Bill 526
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Statewide
Cyber Charter School Funding Reform
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Senate Bill 34
and House Bill 256
How much could your school district and taxpayers save if
there were statewide flat tuition rates of $5000 for regular ed students and
$8865 for special ed.? See the estimated savings by school district here.
Education Voters PA
Website February 14, 2019
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Has your state representative cosponsored HB526?
Any comments contained herein are my comments, alone, and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or organization
that I may be affiliated with.
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