Save Our Schools From Coronavirus Budget Cuts

May 2, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, AFT, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Donald Trump, edtech, Education, Guns, Healthcare, immigration, Labor, Learning, NEA, Politics, Poverty, privatization, protest, school closings, School Funding, school segregation, School to Prison Pipeline, school vouchers, Schools, segregation, Standardized Testing, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Technology, union busting, Unions Budget, budget cuts, coronavirus, economics, furlough, Layoffs, Politics, public schools, schools, Taxation, teachers

America is one dumbass country.

We don’t do the metric system.

We don’t do universal healthcare.

And during a global pandemic, we don’t demand the government pay us to stay home and stop the spread of the disease.

Instead, we demand the government let us go out and get sick.

It should come as no surprise, then, that we deeply under-fund our public schools.

There’s always money for a new war or to subsidize fossil fuels or give billionaires another tax cut, but when it comes to teaching kids how to think critically about their world – time to take out the scissors and slash some budgets.

And now with the inevitable loss of taxes after shutting down the economy to save lives during the global Coronavirus outbreak, experts are expecting the deepest budget cuts to schools – well, ever.

Sixty two district superintendents from urban districts wrote to Congress in April warning of a 15-25% loss in revenues next fiscal year.

The school leaders from cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, say that a 20% loss in both state and local taxes, alone, would result in laying off about 275,000 teachers.

And this would come after students had already suffered significant academic losses during the current (2019-20) school year because of school closings and distance learning initiatives that could not possibly meet the needs of students as well as in-person learning.

They ask legislators to enact a plan devised by the Albert Shanker Institute – a policy organization aligned with the American Federation for Teachers (AFT) – in which the federal government would give billions of dollars to districts in several phases to keep schools open. Then states would increase funding to levels before the Great Recession (2009-13), build up budget reserves and more equitably distribute capital.

How much money would be necessary?

It’s hard to say at this point.

Most districts get about 90% of their funding from state and local taxes and these haven’t been tallied yet for March, when social distancing began.

Some experts expect to have a better picture of the damage by the end of the first or second week of May.

There has been no mass evictions (though that may eventually happen), so property taxes are probably stable at this point. But it’s unclear how much shuttered storefronts and skyrocketing unemployment will affect the picture.

The National Governors Association and non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, though, are expecting the worst.

They estimate a possible $500 billion state shortfall mostly concentrated in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

That’s less than three months away.

Even if you subtract fiscal aide already provided by Congress and state rainy day funds (if present), legislatures would still be at least $360 billion short.

The National Association of Teachers (NEA) is calling for an additional $175 billion just to stabilize the country’s schools.

“The seniors graduating this spring started kindergarten in the fall of 2007,” says Bruce Baker, professor at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University and co-author of the Shanker Institute report.

“Most of these students have spent almost their entire K-12 careers in schools with less funding than there was when they started. If this happens again, it will be because we let it happen.”

And that’s just it.

This Coronavirus crisis is a wake-up call for all of us about the elements of our society that had to fail for us to get to this point.

Everything from how we deal with climate change, to infrastructure, to healthcare, to economic inequality needs to be reconsidered if we are to survive.

Education is an essential piece of that puzzle.

We cannot continue to consume resources like there is no tomorrow – or there will be none.

We cannot continue to treat billionaires like the most vital part of our society when they are really nothing but parasites on it.

And we cannot continue to undercut our public education system and expect our next generation to be in a better position than we are today. In fact, doing so ensures that it won’t be.

Not only do we have to pay for our kids to be educated, we have to pay for ALL kids – black, white, brown, girls, boys, Christians, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, native born — all of them.

We have to integrate, educate and eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline.

And we have to stop wasting the money we do allocate on pointless profit-making endeavors for corporations that give little to nothing back to the children they are meant to be serving. That means no more privatized schools, no more high stakes standardized testing, no more shady ed tech, corporate written academic standards and union busting initiatives.

We have to ask ourselves – will we continue to support a culture of death where war and inequality are prioritized over nurturing and care? Or will we finally engage in a culture of life, where education and equity are the driving forces of society?

We can continue to be the laughing stocks of the world with our guns and superstitions, or we can get off our asses and start working toward a better world for all.

The old ways will not work in this new millennium.

It is entirely unclear whether we will heed the call from this crisis or hide our heads in the sand.

But the future of our nation and the well-being of our children are being decided right here, right now, this very minute.

Time to invest.

Email your members of Congress and tell them to keep students learning and educators working.

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Who Will Protect My Right NOT to Pay for Your Child’s Religious Education?

January 24, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, antisemitism, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Budget, capitalism, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, history, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, Scott Walker, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, Whiteness anti-semitism, church and state, education, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, Judaism, Politics, prejudice, racism, school vouchers, schools, SCOTUS, separation of church and state, Tax Credits, Taxation, teachers, Thomas Jefferson

When I was a kid back in middle school, I had a crush on this girl, let’s call her Patty.

She wasn’t the most popular or beautiful girl in class, but I kinda’ liked her.

Of course, she had no idea I was alive.

Or so I thought, until one day she walked straight up to my desk and started rubbing my hair.

I was shocked at first, but then I just closed my eyes and went with it.

I remember the soft caress of her fingers in my mop of curls. She seemed to massage every inch of my scalp. Then she asked, “Where are they?”

“Where are what?” I asked.

“Your horns,” she said. “I want to see your horns.”

“What?” I said. “I don’t have any horns.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “My pastor said all you Jews have horns but you hide them in your hair. I want to see them.”

I had never even heard that bit of anti-Semitism before Patty. But I knew when I was being ridiculed.

The laughter. The embarrassment. I think I asked to go to the bathroom and stayed until the class was over.

Why bring up such childhood trauma?

It has baring on a case before the US Supreme Court this week – Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.

Three women are suing the state of Montana for refusing to pay for their kids to attend religious schools through a defunct voucher program.

Backing the effort are far right figures and groups like The Cato Institute, The Council for American Private Education, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Center for Education Reform – all of which have filed Amici Curiae briefs arguing that prohibiting religious schools from getting public money is somehow a violation of the First Amendment.

If successful, the case would open the door to publicly-funded private religious education across the country – not to mention siphoning much-needed money away from the public schools.

It’s bad enough that kids learn prejudicial lies from the pulpit and parochial schools. It’s worse if the victims of such prejudice have to pay for their tormentors to be thus indoctrinated.

In the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1779, Thomas Jefferson wrote “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical . . . ”

I agree. That is sinful and tyrannical. Especially if those abhorrent beliefs lead to actions detrimental to the health and well-being of those being forced to pay for just such ignorance to be renewed in yet another generation.

The incident with Patty wasn’t the first or last time I suffered through religious persecution. I went to public school but the worst torment usually came from kids who had a year or two of parochial education.

For example, I can’t tell you how many times classmates asked me why I killed Jesus.

Now I’m a middle school teacher, myself.

I do my best to foster understanding and acceptance of all peoples no matter their race, gender, orientation or creed.

That doesn’t mean I squash religious discussion or opinions, either.

Kids are allowed to think and say what they choose. If they want to pray or express a religious belief, that’s fine so long as they don’t hurt others.

Though radical right ideologues decry the loss of religion in public schools, all that really means is that the adults don’t get to express their theologies. The kids have never been thus encumbered.

Even so, religious ignorance is never far away.

Every year before I teach “The Diary of Anne Frank” I go over the history of the Holocaust.

At least one student always raises his or her hand and asks if Hitler was Jewish.

I patiently explain that he wasn’t, but they insist that he must have been. After all, Father Such-And-Such said it, so it must be true.

And this is the kind of nonsense that is often taught as fact at parochial schools.

Private religious institutions are infamous for revisionist history and denying climate science. What’s less well-known is how they often try to normalize racist attitudes.

The American Christian Education (ACE) organization provides fundamentalist school curriculum to thousands of religious schools throughout the country. Included in this curriculum is the A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks. A Beka publishers, in particular, reported that about 9,000 schools nationwide purchase their textbooks.

In their pages you’ll find glowing descriptions of the Ku Klux Klan, how the massacre of Native Americans saved many souls, African slaves had really good lives, homosexuals are no better than rapists and child molesters, and progressive attempts at equal rights such as Brown vs. Board of Education were illegal and misguided. You know – all the greatest Donald Trump campaign hits!

Today these claims are uncritically being taught to children at schools receiving school vouchers. We’re using public money to increase the racism and prejudice in the next generation.

In any sane country, a case like Espinoza would be about stopping such nonsense! But the plaintiffs and their billionaire backers actually want to EXPAND IT!

The goal is to destroy facts and promote ignorance. That requires the destruction of public schools.

Kyle Olson said as much in a 2018 op-ed for National School Choice Week – a bit of propaganda he helped create in 2011 through his lobbying firm, the Education Action Group. In fact, he credited Jesus, himself, with anti-public school venom.

Olson wrote:

“I would like to think that, yes, Jesus would destroy the public education temple and save the children from despair and a hopeless future.”

These are the folks complaining that public tax dollars aren’t being allowed to fund parochial schools everywhere and where they are allowed to bankroll such schools they aren’t being allowed to do so enough.

Technically, the First Amendment doesn’t allow the government to support religious schools.

But the Espinoza crowd think that laundering the money through Tax Credit Scholarships somehow makes it all okay. A business or rich donor hands money to families to send their kids to private schools. Except that money makes a stop at a “scholarship” organization first, and the donors get to deduct their contributions from their taxes. Blogger Peter Greene tells us to think of it like this:

“I’m the state, and you owe me $100. I am not allowed to gamble, but if you give that $100 to my bookie instead, I’ll consider us square.”

It’s a shell game that pretends spending tax money before it gets deposited in the government’s account frees our public servants from following the rules.

I don’t care where it’s been, that’s my money as good as if you took it from my wallet because it’s money owed to me and every other taxpayer. That money is owed to the public good, not some ideologue’s Sunday school project, and its absence means I have to pay more to fund things we all need like police, firefighters, public transportation, and public schools.

They’re right about one thing. This is an issue of religious freedom, but it’s not about their freedom. It’s about MY freedom not to support their beliefs.

I say – let them believe what they will. It’s their choice, and they have the right to subject their children to it if they want.

But leave me out of it.

Don’t expect me to foot the bill.

I’m rightly compelled to pay for public education because it benefits everyone. It creates an educated populace capable of keeping the lights on. It creates people who know enough about the world that they can make knowledgeable decisions and vote for good leaders.

But parochial schools are exclusionary by design. Spreading their ignorance does not benefit society. It hurts it.

We talk a lot about the First Amendment, but we seem to forget what it actually says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

That should be our guiding principle – religious freedom.

Let people practice their faiths however they see fit.

But respect my freedom from religion as much as I respect your freedom of it.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Charter Schools, Harrisburg & Mayor Peduto Created Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Budget Deficit

December 23, 2019December 23, 2019 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Democrat, Education, Harrisburg, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, Schools, segregation, small class size, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Uncategorized Bill Peduto, Budget, charter schools, Harrisburg, Mayor, Pennsylvania, pensions, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, school board, Students, Taxation, teachers

Where did all the money go?

Pittsburgh Public Schools will start 2020 with a $25.1 million budget deficit.

Superintendent Dr. Anthony Hamlet has asked for a 2.3% tax increase to cover the shortfall, but school directors ended up approving his spending plan without approving the tax increase.

The school board will meet on Friday to decide whether to ultimately raise taxes or make cuts including possible staff furloughs.

But in the meantime, city residents are left wondering why the measure was necessary in the first place.

After all, student enrollment has gone down at the second biggest district in the state after Philadelphia, yet spending is up 2.4% from 2019.

It really all comes down to three things: charter schools, retirement costs and tax revenue differed to the city.

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Charter schools are funded with tax dollars but often privately run. As such, any student living within district boundaries takes funding away from the district.

And the amount of money keeps rising even though enrollment has not increased at these charter schools.

Since 2014, the amount the district has sent to these privatized schools has gone up by 88%.

In 2019, the district paid $95,129,023 to charter schools. In the proposed 2020 budget, new district projections put the expenditure at $102,150,444. That’s an increase of $7,021,421 in a single year.

So the cost of charter schools is 15% of the entire proposed budget. If it were eliminated, the district wouldn’t have a budget deficit at all – it would be running with a dramatic surplus.

And this is money that need not be spent.

Only about 6% of public school students state-wide are enrolled in these schools, and they duplicate services students are already receiving. Yet charter schools provide little value for students.

Nearly every study has found that charter schools do not produce better academic results than authentic public schools – in fact, many drastically underperform their public school counterparts.

For instance, a recent study of charter school students in Pennsylvania conducted by the school privatization friendly Center for Research on EDucation Outcomes (CREDO), found that charter students do about the same on reading exams but score worse in math than students in authentic public schools. The study also found major disparities between charter schools – with cyber charters performing especially poorly.

In addition they have been found to increase racial segregation, cherrypick students, increase administrative overhead and discriminate against students with special needs.

But the state passed a law in 1997 allowing charter schools and there is nothing Pittsburgh Public Schools can do but continue to pay for them.

School directors, administrators, teachers, students, parents and concerned citizens can lobby their representatives in Harrisburg to fix these problems, but until they do there is little local districts can do.

However, the fact that charter schools increase local taxes is beyond doubt.

According to a recent report by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO), state charter schools are growing at a rate of 10 percent a year. The PASBO calculates at least 37 cents of every new dollar of property taxes in the fiscal year 2017-2018 went right to charters. And that percentage is only expected to grow.

RETIREMENT COSTS

Another large expenditure beyond the district’s control is retirement costs.

In 2019, the district spent $73,769,809 on contributions to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS). In 2020, that number is expected to increase to $76,770,577. That’s an increase of $3,000,768.

Why the increase?

Because our state lawmakers were fiscally irresponsible.

Basically, the legislature stopped paying the bills for nearly two decades.

The state government, local school districts and commonwealth employees are responsible for paying into the pension system. Districts and state workers made all their payments. Employees put aside 7.5% of their salaries every year to pay for their retirement.

But the legislature didn’t make its payments. It pushed them off to the future, and now that the future’s here, a larger percentage of the cost has fallen on local school districts.

It’s a problem of Harrisburg’s making and – frankly – the legislature should be buckling down to find a solution.

But instead they’re planning on the cynical assumption that voters are too stupid to understand it all and will just blame public school employees for demanding what we promised them when they were hired. The legislature has continuously reduced benefits for future employees and tried to illegally cut benefits for current ones.

What they should do is increase taxes on the wealthy and pay their damn bills.

We had a contract with employees when they were hired. We can’t renege on it now that they’ve retired.

Once again this is something Pittsburgh Public school directors and administrators have no control over. It will take a combined effort by local communities across the Commonwealth to lobby Harrisburg to get off its ass and fix the problem it made.

MAYOR PEDUTO

The final factor behind the proposed tax increase is Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.

When the city was on the verge of financial collapse 15 years ago, the school district agreed to help by diverting a portion of its tax revenue to the city.

Now that the city is out of financial distress (and has been since 2018), Dr. Hamlet has suggested the city should return that money – not back payments, just stop taking the additional tax revenue. Administrators estimate that would bring in another $20 million for the city school district.

It wouldn’t heal the budget shortfall all by itself, but it would certainly help.

However, Peduto has furiously raged that he would not support such a measure and would fight it in Harrisburg.

Frankly, it’s a real dick move.

When asked about it he deflects to criticisms of the Hamlet administration that really have nothing to do with anything.

It’s really a simple matter. The schools lent the city money when it was in distress. The city is no longer in distress, so it should stop taking that additional money.

SOLUTIONS

The first thing that has to be done is for Pittsburgh Public School directors to put on their grown up pants and raise taxes.

Look, I get it. No one wants to raise millage. But sometimes being an adult means doing things you don’t want to do.

And frankly, it’s not really that hard a call.

Pittsburgh Public Schools has the lowest tax rate in Allegheny County at only 9.84 mills. Most suburban districts range from 12 to 31 mils.

The proposed tax increase would mean paying an additional $23 for a property valued at $100,000.

This is not an unbearable burden.
Some complain that it would push city residents to move – but really anywhere else you move will have higher taxes! Anyone who packs up and moves away will not be doing it for financial reasons.

According to the district’s own Website, 67% of its students are non-white. Only 33% are white, with 53% African American and 14% other races.

Anyone complaining about money being spent on district students is upset about money being spent on THOSE KIDS. Just as so many of the criticisms of Dr. Hamlet, who is black, come down to an inability to accept a person of color in a position of power – especially if he isn’t going to simply give in to corporate interests looking to pick the district dry.

The fact is the majority of district students live in poverty. Though enrollment has gone down, that has allowed per pupil expenditures to increase and help heal the trauma of penury.

These kids need smaller class sizes, more tutoring, librarians, counselors, wider curriculum, etc. The money being spent on them is not wasted. In fact, in a perfect world it would be increased. We need to spend MORE on our poorest students than our most privileged ones to help them catch up.

I am thankful that board members Veronica Edwards, Pam Harbin, Devon Taliaferro, and Sylvia Wilson understood that by voting for both the proposed budget and the tax increase.

Kevin Carter, at least approved the spending plan, but he abstained from voting on whether the district should raise taxes, explaining later that he promised his constituents that was something he wouldn’t do.

Board members Cindy Falls, Bill Gallagher, Terry Kennedy, and Sala Udin voted against both measures.

Here’s hoping they find the courage to do what’s right after the holidays.

But even if they do, there is much more we must accomplish – and it requires everyone.

City residents need to rise up and demand their representatives put out the raging dumpster fires they keep lighting.

We need a state legislature willing to take on the charter school industry and at very least stop making it compete with authentic public schools for funding.

We need lawmakers willing to make the wealthy pay their fair share so the rest of us get the civil society we deserve – and that includes paying for the pension obligations we’ve already incurred.

And Pittsburgh needs a mayor who isn’t going to rage and foam at the prospect of FairPlay and will return the money Pittsburgh Public lent to the city.

Pittsburgh Mayor’s Tantrum About School Finances Proves He Doesn’t Understand Education or Equity

November 17, 2019November 17, 2019 stevenmsinger A+ Schools, Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Election, Harrisburg, history, Labor, Local Control, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, School Funding, school segregation, Schools, segregation, Social Justice, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Unions Anthony Hamlet, Bill Peduto, Budget, charter schools, education, finances, Local Control, Mayor, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, public schools, school board, Taxation

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is steaming mad and he doesn’t care who knows it.

On Tuesday he raved that Pittsburgh Public Schools’ finances should be taken over by the state – the same fate the city had suffered during its own economic troubles from 2004-18.

The reason Peduto thinks the school should submit to a financial recovery plan overseen by a state appointed board? School Superintendent Dr. Anthony Hamlet is proposing a 2.3% tax increase in 2020 for a reserve fund while Peduto’s municipal government allegedly is managing with a surplus.

If the city can manage its finances without a tax increase, wonders Peduto, why can’t the school district?

However, the Mayor’s narrative conveniently leaves out a few pertinent facts.

Most importantly – during the city’s economic trouble 14 years ago, Pittsburgh Public Schools gave a portion of their tax revenue to the municipal government to help it pay the bills.

Now that the city is doing better, school officials are suggesting Peduto should give that tax revenue back to the schools. And that suggestion infuriates the mayor.

In addition, it’s not true that Pittsburgh’s 2020 budget includes no tax increase.

The city is raising taxes by about 6% to pay for upkeep at its parks. However, since this tax is the result of a referendum approved by the voters, it is being spun as a “no new taxes” budget.

The city has a surplus due to construction of new high-end apartments. City Council could have budgeted some of this money to pay for the parks. Instead, leaders like Peduto were too cowardly to take the blame, themselves, and put it out as a question to voters.

It is entirely unfair to criticize Pittsburgh Public Schools for raising taxes a smaller degree (2.3%) than the city is (6%).

Both entities spend about the same amount annually. In 2020, the city has a proposed $608 million budget, and the schools have a proposed $665.6 million budget.

Moreover, there is nothing unfair about school officials asking for the tax revenue back from the city that they generously offered it when the municipality was in need.

Now that the city is out of peril (and has been since 2018), it should pay back that money. To be honest, it should do so with 14 years worth of interest – but no one is suggesting that.

At least it is time for Pittsburgh to stop leeching off its schools and give this revenue back.

The fact that Peduto is whining about something so obviously fair and equitable makes him look like a spoiled child.

The same goes for his suggestion of state takeover of district finances.

Pittsburgh Public Schools already is audited by the state every year. It is not on the state watchlist for districts in financial distress.

District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said, “There have been no significant issues raised related to how the district conducts its finances.”

Peduto just wants the schools to have to endure the same indignity the city did thereby putting municipal leaders in a better light.

After all, it was the school district which helped the city – not the other way round. And it was the city that needed the state to take over its finances, not the schools.

It was Pittsburgh Public School’s Chief Financial Officer Ronald Joseph who explicitly proposed a take-back of wage tax revenue that was diverted to the city in 2005.

City residents pay a 3% wage tax. Of this money, originally 2% went to the schools and 1% to the city.

When the city was placed under Act 47 state oversight, the formula was changed to give a quarter percent more to the city from the school’s allotment – thus 1.75% went to the schools and 1.25% went to the city.

Pittsburgh left Act 47 in 2018 but the wage tax distribution has remained the same.

“Why in the heck can’t the school board balance their budget?” Peduto said. “Where is all this money going?”

Answer: Some of it is still going unnecessarily to fill your municipal coffers.

Peduto added:

“If they are looking to have part of the city’s wage tax, then they should be willing to open the books and let the state come in and do exactly what we had to do through Act 47, which was difficult restructuring for the future. If we didn’t have that, the city would be bankrupt.”

So let me get this straight. In order to give back the revenue the schools generously loaned the city, you need a look at their finances? I sure wouldn’t lend you a dollar or else I’d have to show you my tax returns and checking account just to get the loan repaid.

Peduto went on:

“If they simply say, ‘We’re going to take your revenue to fix our hole,’ and not be the leaders that they were elected to be in making tough decisions like raising taxes, then I have no time for that, absolutely none, and I will fight them in Harrisburg.”

How generous! That’s like threatening to go to Mom and Dad to settle your dispute. A real leader would know he was in the wrong and just pay up.

This isn’t the first time Peduto has clashed with city schools.

He seems to think his role as mayor supersedes that of the school district which operates independently through an elected nine-member board.

He said as much in 2018 when district negotiations with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT) threatened to spill over into the first teachers strike in more than 40 years.

Peduto wanted to mediate between the teachers and school administrators – a measure Dr. Hamlet patently refused.

Peduto said:

“They have to remember they’re a board. They’re not a government. They’re no different than the water board or the Port Authority board or the airport board. They’re a board of education. Their job should be solely making sure that kids are getting a good education. When there becomes labor strife in the city, labor strife that could affect the economic development of the city for years to come, they need to move out of the way and let [elected] leaders lead.”

Dr, Hamlet said this was a “bargaining process, not a political” one, and that Peduto needed to let administration continue the process of bargaining with the teachers – a process that resulted in a new contract without a strike.

The relationship has been chilly even before Hamlet was hired in 2016.

In a community where district funding is constantly at risk from unregulated and unaccountable charter schools, Peduto actually presided over a 2014 ribbon cutting ceremony at the Hill House Passport Academy Charter School.

Charter school costs are one of the largest expenses the district pays annually.

According to PennLive.com, the district paid $79 million (or about 12% of its budget) in 2017-18 to these institutions which are funded with public tax dollars but privately run.

Like many charter schools, the Hill District institution is incredibly segregated. According to ProPublica, 96% of students are children of color. It has no gifted program, offers no AP courses, has no students taking the SAT or ACT test, no calculus classes, no advanced math, no physics, geometry, chemistry or 8th grade algebra courses.

In short, this is not the type of school the mayor of a major metropolitan center should be promoting.

And Peduto would know that if he had any knowledge of how school systems actually work. Before entering city politics, the Democrat ran a consulting business and served as Chief of Staff to City Councilman Dan Cohen.

Since his first successful campaign for mayor in 2013, Peduto has had a history of making bold promises to the Pittsburgh Public Schools that have not always come to fruition.

Peduto said he would lobby for additional funding for city schools in Harrisburg but district solicitor Ira Weiss said the mayor never followed through.

Peduto proposed increasing school revenue by helping to rent out unused school space. That hasn’t happened, either, said Weiss.

Peduto suggested increasing student after school programs by working together with the district and others like the YMCA and the Student Conservation Association. While a few such programs do exist, there is no broad collaboration, said Errika Fearby Jones, the executive director of Dr. Hamlet’s office.

Peduto’s summer reading program with the city and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh likewise never materialized – though the library runs its own program.

Moreover, Peduto’s plan to restart the Generations Together program with the University of Pittsburgh to promote cross-generational learning never happened either. Pitt shut down the program in 2002.

Curtiss Porter, who served as Peduto’s chief education and neighborhood reinvestment officer during the first year of his administration, blames the problem on a disagreement about who should be in charge.

The city and school district had a good working relationship when he was there, he said, but there was “a clear demarcation” between the two bodies, which made it difficult to implement some of Peduto’s ideas.

“At critical junctures…the school district made it clear that they were willing partners but that they did not have to bow to the city,” he said. “[They] made it clear the city had no jurisdiction over education.”

And that disconnect appears to continue today.

Peduto is engaged in an ignorant and arrogant power struggle with city schools that helps no one.

Who’s Trading Public School Funding for a Tax Credit?

August 18, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget, Campaign Donations, capitalism, church and state, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Education, Harissburg, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Prejudice, private schools, privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Tom Wolf, voting church and state, education, EITC, First Amendment, Pennsylvania, Politics, private schools, Privatize, public schools, religion, Rich, rich kids, school vouchers, schools, tax, Tax Credits, Taxation, teachers, wealth inequality, Wealthy

Ever wonder why our roads and public school buildings are crumbling?

Ever wonder why schools can’t afford books, buses and nurses?

Ever wonder why classroom teachers are forced to buy paper, pencils and supplies for their students out of pocket?

Because businesses like Giant Eagle, American Eagle Outfitters, and Eat’n Park aren’t paying their fair share.

It’s a simple concept – you belong to a society, you should help pay for the roads, bridges, schools, etc. that everyone needs to keep that society healthy.

After all, as a stockholder, CEO or business owner, you directly benefit from that society. If it didn’t exist, you wouldn’t have nearly as many customers – if any.

Many of us learned this kind of stuff in kindergarten or grade school.

But ironically programs that allow businesses to avoid paying their fair share are being used to short change many of those same kindergarten and grade schools.

In Pennsylvania, one such program is called the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC), and everyone from local banks to Duquesne Light to UPMC healthcare providers are using it to lower their taxes while stealing from the public school cookie jar.

Here’s how it works.

If you expect a tax bill of $X at the end of the year, you can donate that same amount to the state for the purpose of helping parents pay off enrollment at a private or religious school for their children. Then you get between 75-90% of that donation back.

So if your tax bill is $100 and you donate $100, you can get back $90 – reducing your total tax bill to a mere 10 bucks.

Heck! Since this money is classified as a “donation” you can even claim it on your taxes and get an additional refund – even to the point where you end up making money on the deal! Pennsylvania even allows a “triple dip” – so you get the EITC tax credit, a reduction in your taxable income, and a reduction in your federal taxable income. We actually pay you to shortchange us on your taxes!

Now I’m oversimplifying a bit since you can only use the EITC for up to $750,000 a year, but it’s still a sweet deal for businesses. It just really hurts nearly everyone else because it reduces the state’s general fund – by $124 million last year, alone.

When we give away hundreds of millions of dollars every year to religious and parochial schools, we have less money to spend on public schools, roads and all other services that benefit the majority of our citizens – especially the poor who rely more heavily on these services.

So why doesn’t the state just budget this amount of money directly to religious and private schools instead of ransacking the general fund after businesses donate it to the tax incentive program?

Because it’s illegal to give taxpayer dollars to religious and private schools. The establishment clause of the First Amendment forbids it.

The founders of our country didn’t want a state religion with schools teaching theological propaganda like we had in Great Britain. Moreover, they demanded tax dollars be spent with accountability to the whole public – something you cannot do in a private or religious school which isn’t set up for everyone but only those who choose and can afford to go there.

However, some smart ass thought of an alleged loophole. He said that if tax money is turned into a tax credit, it’s no longer tax money and it doesn’t violate the rules to spend it on religious and private schools.

So this is a fiscal sleight of hand meant to give businesses a tax break while boosting private schools.

Who’s guilty of hiding behind this loophole to bolster their bottom line while short changing ours?

Probably a lot of businesses you know.

Thankfully, their donations to the EITC Program are a matter of public record as is how much money returned to them as savings.

You can find a handy database of state businesses right HERE searchable by county compiled by Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

I happen to live in Allegheny County in the Pittsburgh region – the second highest area of the Commonwealth for these tax dodge…. I mean credits.

Across the county in 2017-18 (the most recent year for which data is available), Allegheny County businesses donated $15,741,544. They got back $14,180,261 in tax credits.

A quick search came up with these noteworthy businesses:

–Fatheads – the Southside sports bar along Carson Street in Pittsburgh
Contribution: $ 10,000
Tax Credit: $ 9,000

–AEO Management, Co.  (American Eagle Outfitters Corporate Office in the South Side, Pittsburgh)
Contribution: $ 350,000
Tax Credit: $ 315,000

–Apex Diamonds, Inc. (A Pittsburgh jeweler)
Contribution: $ 149,000
Tax Credit: $ 134,100

–Cochran Motors, Inc. (car dealership in Monroeville)
Donation: $ 100,000
Tax Credit: $ 90,000

–Deer Leasing Co. (freight and cargo business) THREE ENTRIES:
Donation: $ 444,444
Tax Credit: $ 400,000

Deer Leasing Co.
Donation: $ 221,111
Tax Credit: $ 200,000

Deer Leasing Co.
Donation: $ 388,888
Tax Credit: $ 349,999

-Dollar Bank – TWO ENTRIES
Donation: $ 225,000
Tax Credit: $ 202,500

Dollar Bank
Donation: $ 400,000
Tax Credit: $ 360,000

–Duquesne Light Company – THREE ENTRIES
Donation: $ 10,000
Tax Credit $ 10,000
(So 100% return on investment!?)

Duquesne Light Company
Donation: $ 50,000
Tax Credit: $ 45,000

Duquesne Light Company
Donation: $ 240,000
Tax Credit: $ 216,000

-Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, Inc. (Corporate headquarters in Homestead)
Donation: $ 25,000
Tax Credit: $ 23,500

-Federated Advisory Services Company (Asset management company) – THREE ENTRIES
Donation: $ 111,111
Tax Credit: $ 100,000

Federated Investment Counseling
Donation: $ 111,111
Tax Credit: $ 100,000

Federated Investment Counseling
Donation: $ 222,222
Tax Credit: $ 200,000

–Giant Eagle, Inc. – TWO ENTRIES
Donation: $ 833,333
Tax Credit: $ 750,000

Giant Eagle, Inc.
Donation: $ 221,111
Tax Credit: $ 200,000

–Glimcher Brokerage, Inc. (Real estate company) – TWO ENTRIES
Donation: $ 380,000
Tax Credit: $ 342,000

Glimcher Group, Inc.
Donation: $ 300,000
Tax Credit: $ 270,000

–HM Health Insurance Company (Camp Hill, Pa) – THREE ENTRIES
Donation: $ 50,000
Tax Credit: $ 45,000

HM Health Insurance Company
Donation: $ 243,333
Tax Credit: $ 219,000

HM Health Insurance Company
Donation: $ 165,556
Tax Credit: $ 150,000

–PNC Bank, N.A. – TWO ENTRIES
Donation: $ 685,000
Tax Credit: $ 616,500

PNC Bank, N.A.
Donation: $ 148,303
Tax Credit: $ 133,500

–Rohrich Imports, Inc. (Luxury Pittsburgh Car Dealership)
Donation: $ 60,000
Tax Credit: $ 54,000

–The Buncher Company (property management company) – THREE ENTRIES
Donation: $ 416,667
Tax Credit: $ 375,000

The Buncher Company
Donation: $ 416,667
Tax Credit: $ 375,000

The Buncher Company
Donation: $ 221,111
Tax Credit: $ 200,000

–The Huntington National Bank –TWO ENTRIES
Donation: $ 549,556
Tax Credit: $ 494,600

The Huntington National Bank
Donation: $ 111,111
Tax Credit: $ 100,000

–UnitedHealthcare of Pennsylvania, Inc.
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 180,000

-UPMC Diversified Services, Inc. (Healthcare provider) – SIX ENTRIES
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 180,000

UPMC Diversified Services, Inc.
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 181,000

UPMC Diversified Services, Inc.
Donation: $ 190,000
Tax Credit: $ 171,000

UPMC Health Benefits, Inc.
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 180,000

UPMC Health Benefits, Inc.
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 181,000

UPMC Health Benefits, Inc.
Donation: $ 200,000
Tax Credit: $ 180,000

But this leaves out the largest and shadiest group donating to the EITC Program – Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs).

These “special purpose entities” are set up to represent individual donors so they can more easily divert tax dollars to private and parochial schools.

LLCs represent hundreds of individuals who allow the LLC to donate on their behalf and then they get the tax credits passed back to them. It’s a way to encourage the wealthy to get the tax cut and support school privatization without all the hassle of doing the paperwork themselves.

And most (if not all) of these LLCs are set up by religious organizations to boost their own parochial schools.

For instance, Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools is perhaps the largest LLC receiving EITC funds.

Across the state, these organization made $15.6 million in donations and claimed $14 million in tax credits.

In Allegheny County, the largest are CASTA-SOS LLC and Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship LLC.

CASTA was set up by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship benefits Jewish schools in the city.

Here’s how much they took from the state general fund last year:

–CASTA-SOS I LLC
Donation: $ 509,500
Tax Credit: $ 458,550

CASTA-SOS II LLC
Donation: $ 460,890
Tax Credit: $ 414,801

–Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship I LLC
Donation: $ 675,250
Tax Credit: $ 607,725

Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship II LLC
Donation: $ 750,000
Tax Credit: $ 675,000

EITC money went to almost 1,170 different organizations across the state. A fraction were YMCA’s, the Salvation Army and preschools. But the vast majority were private and religious schools.

Defenders of the project claim this money goes to fund “scholarships” for poor children to help defray the costs of enrollment at these schools.

However, a family making as much as $100,608 per year can qualify for an EITC scholarship for their child. A family with two children could make up to $116,216 and still qualify.

Consider this: one of the largest single recipients of this money in Allegheny County was the exclusive Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh. The private secular school took in almost $1 million last year so that its wealthy students didn’t have to spend as much on enrollment.

Why are we subsidizing the rich?

Why are we robbing the poor to do so?

Why are we using public money to fund the teaching of climate denial, creationism, indoctrination in religious and political ideologies?

The short answer – our politicians are spineless and indebted to the people this benefits.

Just this summer, the Pennsylvania legislature AGAIN increased the limit for the program by an additional $25 million.

That’s the pattern. Every year, the Republican-controlled (and heavily gerrymandered) legislature can’t get their regressive policies passed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. They need some Democrats to support their spending priorities. So they entice right-leaning Democrats with increases to these tax incentive programs in order to reach compromises.

The result – every year we allow more tax dollars to fly away to private and religious schools while further undermining funding for public schools.

But it could have been worse. Earlier in the year, the legislature passed a measure to increase the EITC Program by $100 million. Thankfully it was vetoed by Gov. Wolf. Unfortunately, he let the $25 million increase get through.

This is a problem that is not going away.

We need to let our lawmakers know in no uncertain terms that we do NOT support these programs. And this isn’t just Republican lawmakers. We especially need to pressure Democrats and even run challengers to those who are not progressive enough in the primaries.

And we need to let businesses who partake of the smorgasbord of tax credits that doing so will lose them our business.

If we want to stop theft disguised as “tax credits,” we have to start hitting these businesses where it hurts – in the pocketbook.

Because they certainly don’t feel it in their hearts.

Pittsburgh School Board Candidate Anna Batista Takes Big Money From Special Interests

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Campaign Donations, Charter Schools, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Democrat, Education, Journalism, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, privatization, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, School to Prison Pipeline, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Unions, voting Anna Batista, bribery, Campaign finance, education, Election, Local Control, Pam Harbin, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Privatize, school board, Tax Credits, tax cuts, Taxation

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“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

-George Washington

Anna Batista, a corporate consultant at Highstreet Consulting running for Pittsburgh School Board, is taking thousands of dollars in donations from big money interests.

A quick look at campaign finance reports on Allegheny County’s Website shows Batista took beaucoup bucks from school privatization lobbyists, real estate developers, lawyers, and financial advisors.

Meanwhile, her opponent Pam Harbin, a public school watchdog, is supported almost exclusively by grassroots donations.

Both candidates are running for District 4, which serves parts of Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, Shadyside and North Oakland. Since they’ve cross filed and will appear on both the Republican and Democratic primary ballots, the seat should be decided in the May 21 primary.

Batista and Harbin have raised similar amounts for their campaigns. Harbin has $33,412.95 while Batista has $32,414.

Batista has support from at least two troubling industries – school privatizers and corporate crusaders – which are nowhere to be seen in her opponents financials.

Particularly troubling to me are the charter school and voucher advocates.

Someone shouldn’t be running for a public school board with backing from the same vultures demanding public schools be dismantled and their assets and funding siphoned away to private industry. Charter schools cost the Pittsburgh Public district more than $85 million per year in tuition payments. While the district has no plans to open new public schools, it is forced to open new charter schools every time one of these publicly financed but privately run institutions appeals to the state Charter Appeal Board, further draining resources away from remaining public schools.

In fact, Batista is using “Students First” as a title on her campaign mailers. This is the name of a well-known school privatization group founded by infamous public school saboteur Michelle Rhee. The education justice movement across the country and here in Pittsburgh has been fighting Students First for years. They are infamous for dumping money into Pennsylvania politics to back legislators friendly to school privatization. No one who is serious about education justice would use this title: either Batista does not know about Students First, she knows and doesn’t care, or she is being intentional in signaling to privatizers that she is on their side.

Students First merged with 50CAN, a national group focused on vouchers and school privatization that grew out of ConCAN, started by Connecticut hedge fund managers. Betsy DeVos, now U.S. Secretary of Education, praised the merger and has done similar work for years through her own organization with the same privatization agenda. Here in Pennsylvania, the local branch is PennCAN. Their director, who also sits on the board of a local charter school asking for approval to set up shop in Pittsburgh, is one of Batista’s donors.

The largest donations are noted below. Chief among these are:

-Rachel Amankulor, PennCAN and Catalyst Charter School board member. (Pittsburgh Public School Board denied Catalyst’s application citing problems with its plan to accommodate students with disabilities, among other issues, but the state Charter Appeal Board overturned the board’s decision and the case may now go to Pennsylvania Supreme Court.)

-Catherine Axtman, spouse of William Axtman who sits on the Propel Charter School Board

-Kirk Burkley ($500) and Robert Bernstein ($250), of Bernstein- Burkley, a Pittsburgh law firm specializing in Business Law, Creditors Rights, Oil & Gas, Bankruptcy, & Real Estate. (Burkley ran against school board member Lynda Wrenn in 2015 – a race fought in large part around privatization issues!)

-Allison McCarthy, Vice President of Teach for America; Catalyst Charter School Board Member; and Broad Academy graduate (Eli Broad is a major privatizer who started the Broad Academy of which Devos is a graduate.)

-Nathaniel Yap, spouse of Brian Smith, Catalyst Charter Founder and CEO ($1,000)

And then we come to the big business partisans.

Many of these advocate for tax deferment programs to entice businesses into the Pittsburgh area on the condition that they are allowed to escape paying taxes or pay at a reduced rate for a certain number of years. Programs such as Tax Incremental Financing (TIFs) put a heavier burden on the schools than other public resources. They cost the school district 50% as opposed to the county and city, which only lose 25% of their owed taxes each.

Local politicians like County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto – though Democrats – are chief advocates of these types of neoliberal, business friendly programs. While the city and county have nothing to do with Pittsburgh Public Schools, they do often expect the School Board to rubber stamp TIFs. The School Board is an independent taxing body, but they are rarely brought to the table at the beginning of the process.

Corporate donors include:

-Friends of Rich Fitzgerald ($500)

-People for Bill Peduto ($2,000)

-Gregg Perelmann, Walnut Capital ($1,000)

-Todd Reidbord, Walnut Capital (Developers of Bakery Square and other projects that have received a number of TIFs)

-Helen Casey, CEO of Howard Hanna

-John Katz, Brandywine Agency ($1,000 plus in-kind) (His office in the Squirrel Hill business district is worth thousands)

-Paul Katz, Brandywine Agency ($250)

-Patricia Katz, Brandywine Agency ($1,000)

-Rod Werstil, McKinney Properties ($500)

-Kevin McKeegan, Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP (Pittsburgh Real Estate Law)

-Luke Meyers, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates (New York Real Estate Law)

-Nancy Finkelstein, Schulte Roth & Zabel (Finkelstein’s Linkedin Profile includes this quote: “I have concentrated my practice on representing private equity funds, investment banks, hedge funds, financial institutions, finance companies and high-net-worth individuals in a wide variety of transactions, including financings, debt restructurings, leveraged acquisitions, and collateralized loan facilities.”)

-Steven Massey, Federated Investors

-Richard Lerach, Gateway Financial

-William Sheridan, Reed Smith LLP (“Represented managed care defendants in obtaining dismissal of antitrust conspiracy and monopolization claims.”)

All of this is truly troubling for someone running to serve as a school board director.

Compare Batista’s financials with that of her opponent Harbin.

In at least two instances, Harbin won endorsements and donations from organizations Batista had been courting.

Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers gave Harbin $5,000 instead of Batista.

Likewise, Unite! Pittsburgh gave Harbin $1,500 over Batista. This is State Rep. Summer Lee’s PAC. The organization supports candidates running on a criminal justice slate who are committed to ending the school-to-prison, poverty-to-prison, and addiction-to-prison pipelines.

Other notable donations to Harbin’s campaign include:

-Women for the Future Pittsburgh ($500)

-Friends of Chelsea Wagner ($500) (Wagner is Allegheny County Controller and one of the founders of Women for the Future Pittsburgh)

-Michael Fine ($2,800) physician for the Veterans Administration

-Kathy Fine ($2,800) Michael’s wife and long-time education justice activist who fought against the closing of Pittsburgh’s Schenley High School.

-Nancy Bernstein ($1,000) J Street Board Member (J Street organizes and mobilizes pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure and democratic.)

These are exactly the kind of donations you’d expect from a grassroots candidate – labor unions, progressive political promoters and activists.

Full disclosure: Though I live just outside of the Pittsburgh area, I am not unbiased in this race. I consider Harbin a friend and fully support her run for school board.

However, the donations outlined in this article are all facts. Feel free to go to the county Website and see for yourself.

Our children deserve better than Batista – a school director in the employ of the same forces out to sabotage education and pick the remains clean for their own individual ends.

Call me crazy, but I think children should be an end in themselves.

School board candidates who put themselves up for sale like Batista don’t deserve your vote. They’ve already sold theirs to the highest bidder.

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Five Reasons to Vote NO on the Allegheny County Children’s Fund

October 18, 2018October 18, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Election, Labor, Local Control, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, Republican, School Choice, Schools, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Unions, voting Allegheny County, Allies for Children, charter schools, Children's Fund, education, Election, Great Public Schools-Pittsburgh, Local Control, nonprofit, Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network, philanthrocapitalist, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, public schools, referendum, school board, Taxation, Vote, voting

You can’t raise taxes without a plan of how to spend the money.

But that’s exactly what voters in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are being asked to approve this Nov. 6.

Come election day, all voters in Allegheny County will be confronted with what’s been called the Children’s Fund, a referendum asking for a voluntary 5% property tax hike that allegedly would go to pay for early learning, after-school programs and healthy meals for kids.

But there are no details about who will provide these services, who will be responsible for the money, exactly what else the money might be used for or almost anything substantive about it.

It’s just a check with “For Kids” scrawled in the Memo and everything else left blank.

The plan is highly controversial drawing criticism from across the Mon Valley including school directors, education advocates and even progressive groups like the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN).

Here are the top five reasons you should vote NO on the referendum:

1) It Raises Taxes Without Stipulating Where the Money Goes

Here’s what we do know.

The Children’s Fund would be financed by 0.25 mills of property tax — $25 on each $100,000 of assessed value, beginning Jan. 1.

That’s expected to generate roughly $18 million a year that would begin to be distributed in 2020.

If approved, it would change the county Home Rule Charter to establish the fund as part of county government. It would create a new office under the supervision of the county manager.

A Citizens’ Advisory Commission would “review and advise” the work of the new office, according to the proposed charter amendment.

However, County Council and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald would have to do the work of actually creating all this stuff. They’d have to pass an ordinance establishing how this all works, what powers the advisory commission has, etc. They would have to determine whether the money goes to existing programs or new ones. They’d have to set up audits of the money every five years, conduct a study to recommend goals and a focus for how the funding is spent.

That’s an awful lot left undecided.

It makes no sense for voters to hand over the money BEFORE we figure all this other stuff out.

It’s not at all how good government works.

You’re supposed to define a problem or need and then come up with a plan to meet that need. You prepare a budget that justifies raising taxes and then you vote on it.

This is exactly the opposite. We’re getting the money before the plan of how to spend it.

That’s a recipe for fraud and financial mismanagement.

2) It’s Unclear Who Would Be In Charge of the Money

Who would be accountable for this money?

We know who gets to decide this – County Council and the Chief Executive. But we don’t know who they will pick or what powers they’ll delegate to these people. Nor do we know what kind of oversight there will be or what kind of regulations will exist for how it can be spent.

This is a blind statement of trust.

It’s like saying – “Here’s $18 million. Go buy us something nice.”

What if they mismanage the money? And what would that even mean for money with so few strings attached? And how would we know? How transparent would this process be?

It’s kind of hard to approve such a plan with so many variables up in the air.

**3) The Campaign was Not Grass Roots**

To hear supporters talk, you’d think this was a bottom up crusade created by, organized by and conducted by everyday citizens from our communities.

It wasn’t.

Sure, volunteers for the Children’s Fund went door-to-door to collect more than 40,000 signatures from voters last summer.

But they weren’t all volunteers.

Financial documents show that the whole initiative has been funded by various nonprofit organizations that could, themselves, become beneficiaries of this same fund.

According to the Children’s Fund’s own campaign finance report, as of June there were three nonprofit corporations who donated $427,000 to the campaign: the Human Services Center of Turtle Creek gave $160,000, Pressley Ridge Foundation gave $150,000, and Allies for Children gave a donation of $45,000 and another for $72,000.

That’s like McDonalds spending a hundred thousand dollars to fix up the school cafeterias so it could land a multi-million dollar annual contract!

It’s a huge conflict of interest.

At very least, it’s purposefully misleading.

Many of those “volunteers” gathering signatures weren’t working for free. They were part of the $100,000 spent by the campaign to hire Vote Goal Organizing for paid signature collectors.

That doesn’t look like charity. It looks like philanthrocapitalism – when corporations try to disguise grabs for power and profit as philanthropy.

Corporations – even so-called nonprofit corporations – rarely do things out of sheer goodness. They’re acting in the best interest of the company.

I see no reason to think this “Children’s Fund” is any different.

4) It Works Around Instead of With Local Government

Though almost everyone agrees with the stated goals of the Children’s Fund, many organizations and government officials complained that they were not consulted and made a part of the process.

Two Pittsburgh Public School directors went on record in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about a lack of communication.

“First and foremost, we have not had any conversations with the organizers of the referendum,” board president Regina Holley said. “There are lots of ifs and whats that have not been answered.”

Kevin Carter, another city school director added, “In my role as a school board member, they didn’t talk to us about this at all.”

“When you leave your largest school district in the region out of this conversation, are you doing this around children?” he asked, citing that the district serves 25,000 students daily.

This has been a common thread among officials. No one wants to say they’re against collecting money that’s ostensibly for the benefit of children, but it’s hard to manage the money if you’re not part of the process.

And it’s not just protocol. Many are worried that this lack of communication may be emblematic of how the fund will be run. If organizers aren’t willing to work with local governments to get the job done, how will they know what each community needs? How will they meet those needs? Is that even what the fund will really be about?

Richard Livingston, Clairton school board president, noted concern that the money collected might not be spent evenly throughout the county. For all he knows, it could just be spent in the city or in select areas.

Indeed, this is not the best way to start any endeavor funded by all, for the benefit of all children.

5) It’s Redundant

While it’s true that the county could use more funding to meet the needs of students, numerous organizations already exist that attempt to provide these services.

There are a plethora of Pre-K, after school tutoring and meal services in the Mon Valley. In fact, much of this is done at the county’s various neighborhood schools.

If organizers were only concerned with meeting these needs, why form an office within county government that would have an appointed advisory commission? Why not just increase the funding at the local schools and/or organizations already doing this work?

In fact, this is exactly the reason the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network is against the initiative.

According to the organization’s statement:

“At PIIN, we believe that the faith community is a sacred partner with our public schools, and we have long been supportive of both the community schools model and increasing state funding to provide an excellent, high-quality education to every child in our region. We believe in funding for early childhood learning, after school programs, and nutritious meals. However, we cannot support a ballot initiative that creates an unnecessary entity, with an unknown advisory board, and an unclear process for directing our tax dollars.

This is why we are urging our membership to reject the Allegheny County Children’s Fund Initiative at the polls this November.”

Another related organization, Great Public Schools-Pittsburgh, also released a statement with “several specific concerns” about the potential fund. These include how the money would be distributed, which organizations would benefit from it, and questions about its redundancy.

Several pre-K programs already exist but are not fully funded, the organization noted. Why don’t we just fund them?

The group is a coalition of the Education Rights Network, One Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, PIIN, and the Service Employees International Union.

The group’s statement noted concerns but fell short of urging an outright NO vote.

The bottom line is that many people are concerned about inadequate funding for children’s programs.

But this “Children’s Fund” is not a solution to that problem.

This is the creation of another bureaucracy that can take our tax dollars and do almost whatever it wants with them.

There is no guarantee it will help kids.

In fact, it looks a lot more like a power and money grab by corporate interests, many of whom would prefer to privatize our school system.

This November, when you go to the polls, do the right thing for our kids.

Vote NO on the Allegheny County Children’s Fund.

Report: US Shortchanged Public Schools by Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Over Decades

September 17, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, AFT, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, ESEA, Healthcare, Local Control, NEA, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, School to Prison Pipeline, school vouchers, Schools, small class size, Social Justice, Special Education, Standardized Testing, Students, Taxation, Teachers, Unions Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, AROS, Confronting the Education Debt, debt, education, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, fairness, Politics, school funding, schools, solutions, Students, tax cuts, Taxation, teachers, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, wealth inequality

Fun Fact: Between 2005 and 2017, the federal government withheld $580 billion it had promised to spend on students from poor families and students with disabilities.

Fun Fact: Over that same period, the personal net worth of the nation’s 400 wealthiest people ballooned by $1.57 trillion.

So, rich people, consider this the bill.

A new report called “Confronting the Education Debt” commissioned by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) details the shortfall in minute detail.

For instance:

$347 billion owed to educate low-income students most of whom are children of color.

$233 billion owed to provide services for students with disabilities.

And this is just the shortfall of the last dozen years! That’s just money due to children who recently graduated or are currently in the school system!

We’ve been cheating our children out of the money we owe them for more than half a century!

Federal education funding levels were first established in 1965 as part of Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the landmark education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

That law, which has become little more than a boondoggle for the standardized testing and school privatization industries, originally was passed to address inequality in America’s education funding.

Now this report from a coalition of groups including the Education Justice Research and Organizing Center, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, Center for Popular Democracy and the Action Center on Race and the Economy points out the multifarious ways we have failed to live up to the standards we set in that original legislation and beyond.

One of the most glaring examples of neglect is Title I funding.

The Johnson administration admitted that schools with a high concentration of students living below the poverty line needed extra support to succeed at the same levels as students from middle class or more affluent backgrounds. So the law promised to provide an additional 40 percent for each poor child above what the state already spent per pupil.

And then it promptly failed to fund it. In 1965 and every year since!

These are not just numbers. With this money, high poverty schools could provide:

“health and mental health services for every student, including dental and vision services; and
a full-time nurse in every Title I school; and
a full-time librarian for every Title I school; and
a full-time additional counselor in every Title I school, or
a full-time teaching assistant in every Title I classroom.”

A decade later, in 1975, the same thing happened with The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Congress told local districts they’d have to do more to help disabled students succeed academically. However, doing so costs money. Lawmakers admitted that disabled students cost more to educate and that local districts often struggle to find the funding to help them succeed.

Once again, Congress pledged to pay up to 40 percent of that additional cost, with local and state funds covering the remainder.

Once again, Congress failed to fund it.

STATE AND LOCAL FAILURE

But it’s not just the federal government that has shirked its duties to school children.

State and local governments also stiffed generations of students out of the resources they deserved – especially if those students have black or brown skin.

Beside the federal government, public schools are funded by their local municipalities and the state. Local governments pay for about 45 percent of school budgets.

However, since most of this allotment is determined by property tax revenues, it ensures the poor get fewer resources than the rich. Kids from rich neighborhoods get lots of resources. Kids from poor areas get the scraps. Inequality is built into the funding formula to ensure that students don’t start out on an even playing field and that economic handicaps are passed on from one generation to the next.

State governments are no better. They provide about 47 percent of school budgets.

As such, they are in the position to right the wrongs of the local community by offsetting the inequality of local governments – but only 11 states do so. Twenty states close their eyes and provide the same funding to each school – rich and poor alike – regardless of need or what each community can afford to provide for its own children. But 17 states are even worse. They actually play Robin Hood in reverse – they funnel more money to wealthier districts than to poor ones.

As a result, schools nationwide serving mostly students of color and/or poor children spend less on each child than districts serving mostly white and/or affluent children.

TAX CUTS

And while our federal, state and local governments have failed to meet their responsibilities to students, they have required fewer taxes from business and industry.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent. Today it is 37 percent.

Congress just passed a series of whooping tax cuts that go into effect in 2019. More than half of the benefit of these cuts will go to the richest five percent of taxpayers. The law is expected to cost the federal treasury as much as $1.5 trillion in lost revenues over the next decade.

Nearly every state levies a much greater share of taxes from low- and middle-income families than from the wealthy.

And that’s before we even start talking about corporations!

While the US federal corporate tax is 35 percent, the effective tax rate that corporations pay after loopholes and deductions is only about 14 percent. This costs the federal government at least $181 billion in annual revenue, based on 2013 estimates by the Government Accountability Office. Local and state corporate tax and abatement programs make it even worse.

This is a choice. We are not requiring the rich to pay their fair share.

SCHOOL-TO-PRISON

Instead of investing in ways to help educate children, one of the only areas we’ve increased funding is incarceration.

The private prison industry is booming, fueled in part by a lack of opportunities in schools.

According to the report:

“In 2017, the National Association of School Resource Officers claimed that school policing was the fastest-growing area of law enforcement. The school safety and security industry was reported to be a $2.7 billion market as of 2015. Most of that $2.7 billion is public money now enriching the private security industry instead of providing real supports to students.”

According to the US Department of Education, 1.6 million students go to a school that employs a law enforcement officer but not a guidance counselor.

That is not an unalterable economic reality. It is a failure of priorities. It is the mark of a society that is not willing to help children but will swoop in to punish them if they get out of line.

SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION

Finally, the report identifies school privatization as a contributing factor to this systemic neglect.

Charter schools are legal in 44 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. They have “systematically stripped public school budgets through the creation of parallel structures of privately-operated, publicly-funded schools.”

Cost studies in San Diego, Los Angeles, Nashville, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Durham and other localities have come to the same conclusion: “the privatization of schools has contributed to austerity conditions in traditional public schools.”

Yet Congress continues to appropriate millions of dollars to the Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program (CSP), which funds new charter start-ups and expansions. The program has a budget of $500 million this year, alone. It is the largest single backer of charter schools in the nation.

According to the report, “In other words, the U.S. Department of Education is operating a program that directly undermines public schools.”

SOLUTIONS

But the report isn’t just about what’s wrong. It outlines how we can make it right.

It outlines three policy initiatives:

1)      “Full funding of Title I and IDEA to target federal support to low-income children and students with disabilities.

2)      The creation of 25,000 Sustainable Community Schools by 2025.

3)      A new focus for the U.S. Department of Education, on ensuring and incentivizing equity in public schools across the country.”

And we can pay for it by:

A. “Make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.

Rescind the 2017 tax code changes, which overwhelmingly favor the top 1 percent of income earners.

Close the federal carried interest loophole, a step that could increase federal revenues by between $1.8 and $2 billion annually or, according to some researchers, by as much as $18 billion annually.

If the carried interest loophole is not closed at the federal level, states can impose a surcharge on carried interest income at the state level, raising millions for state budgets.

Enact so-called “millionaire’s taxes” that increase the tax rate on a state’s highest earners. New York and California have already passed such law.

B. Require wealthy corporations to pay their fair share.

End or reduce corporate tax breaks that cost the federal government at least $181 billion annually.
Reduce state and local subsidies to businesses for economic development projects and hold school funding immune from tax abatements.
Enforce and strengthen programs like Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) to ensure that wealthy institutions pay their fair share towards local budgets.

C. Divest from the school-to-prison pipeline.

School safety and security is now a $2.7 billion industry. Much of that money is public money, going to profitable corporations instead of schools.

Divest from expensive security systems, metal detectors and legions of school-based police officers and instead invest in counselors, health and mental-health providers and other supports that make schools safer.

D. Place a moratorium on new charter schools and voucher programs.

A moratorium on the federal Charter Schools Program would free up $500 million annually, which could be used to support the creation of Sustainable Community schools.”

The executive summary concludes with the following statistic.

Even a 10 percent increase in funding for each high poverty student maintained through 12 years of public school can dramatically change the likelihood of academic success. It can boost the chances that students will graduate high school, achieve 10 percent higher earnings as adults and a 6 percentage point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty, according to a 2015 report.

“Ten percent is pocket-change for a nation that has orchestrated the rise of an unmatched billionaire class. In the richest nation in the world, it is possible to fully fund all our public schools, and to provide Black, Brown and low-income children with the educational resources and additional supports and services they need to achieve at the highest levels.”

The facts are in, folks.

We can no longer gripe and complain about a public education system we fail to support without recognizing the cause. We have failed to meet our responsibilities to our children – especially our children of color.

The solution is simple – equity.

We need to demand the rich do the right thing.

We cannot achieve greatness as a nation when wealth and privilege continue to shirk their duties and our lawmakers do little more than enable greed and corruption.

The bill is here.

Time to settle up.

READ THE WHOLE REPORT.

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“We Want Our Money Back!” – The Rallying Cry of the 99% After GOP Tax Scam Passes Senate

December 2, 2017December 3, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, Campaign Donations, capitalism, Civil Rights, Compassion, Congress, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Politics, Poverty, President, protest, Republican, Schools, Taxation Democrats, Donald Trump, plutocracy, Politics, Republicans, Senate, tax cuts, tax scam bill, Taxation

We want our money back!

Every penny!

With interest!

Do you hear us, Republican Senators?

Early this morning while most of us slept, you passed a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest people in America!

And you did it 51-49 with only one Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, joining all Democrats against it.

This was a 500 page piece of lobbyist-written legislation hastily put together – in some cases scribbled in pen across type written pages – that no one had a chance to read before voting.

I am no fan of the corporate Democrats who have taken over what used to be a progressive party. But we can’t blame them for this one.

This scandal belongs entirely on the shoulders of Republicans.

The Dems even offered a resolution to delay the vote so that legislators had a chance to read it. All 52 Republicans voted against it!

This is what happens when the people lose control of their government.

This is what happens when the rich control lawmakers with their money.

There is no longer any doubt that we no longer live in a Republic. We no longer have any form of representative Democracy. We live in a pure plutocracy.

The rich pay the representatives and the representatives do what the rich want.

The wealthy are their real constituents. We are merely patsies told polite falsehoods to keep us in line.

You have no political power.

None.

Governments get their legitimacy from the consent of the governed.

You did not give your consent to give away more than a trillion dollars to rich douchebags who don’t need it. But Republicans gave it to them anyway.

Therefore, our government has no legitimacy.

We are an occupied people.

We are the victims of a palace coup.

The question remains if there is even a semblance of democratic principles left to allow us to regain what has been stolen.

The present plutocracy is weak. It has not had time enough to consolidate its power.

The old plan of gradually stealing control under cover of neoliberal policies has been abandoned. This is a naked power grab.

Perhaps it will be the jolt we need to snap us all awake.

Perhaps it will be enough to move the 99% to grab what little remains of the system set up by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and the other founders.

We must rise up and demand these crooks pay us back.

“We want our money back!” should be our rallying cry.

If there are any lawmakers left in the halls of power that want to represent us, they should take a page from the GOP handbook.

How many times did Republicans propose overturning Obamacare regardless of whether they had the votes or the power to do so?

We must do the same with this tax scam bill.

At every turn, we should propose repealing the bill and forcing the wealthy to pay back every red cent they stole! With interest!

It doesn’t matter if it won’t pass. Do it.

Clog the wheels of power with our cries. Don’t let them do a single thing more to make the lives of the majority of the population worse.

Democrats, now is your last chance to show us where you really stand.

You and I both know that if the Republicans had offered even the slightest concessions, many Dems would have voted for almost the same tax scam bill. It would have been a terrible piece of legislation that stole banks full of money from you and me. But it wouldn’t have been quite as terrible.

Frankly, that’s not enough, Democrats.

You aren’t to blame for what just happened, but you haven’t proven yourselves to be part of the solution.

If you want our continued support, you need to move to the left. HARD!

The masses have been stoked and stirred by this scandal. The political landscape has never been more primed for a landslide against the ruling class.

Democrats could take advantage of this and earn a blue wave next year.

But this will only happen if you run candidates that are willing to fight on our side in the class war that has already begun.

Bernie Sanders is great, but let’s be honest. He’s kinda elderly, and he’s a moderate.

That’s right. “Crazy” Bernie with his “kooky” socialist ideas is in the middle of any sane political spectrum. He only seems like a radical because of how far to the right the spectrum has shifted in this country.

We need real progressives who aren’t afraid to take on the establishment and fight inequality, police brutality, white supremacy, school privatization and a host of ills that – frankly – Democrats have historically championed almost as much as Republicans.

The pieces are all lined up. The board is ready to play.

We will support anyone who supports us.

We are coming for Republicans.

They will be repealed and replaced.

We will get back every penny they just stole last night. And we will grab every Richy Rich plutocrat by the heels, turn them upside down and shake until we get back every penny they took – with interest.

We will wring every last drop of Democracy we can from this government.

And if we find that there is not enough left…

History has an answer for what comes next.

Americans don’t take kindly to taxation without representation.

And that’s exactly what Republicans gave us this morning.

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Supreme Court Paves the Way to Taxing Churches

June 27, 2017 stevenmsinger Accountability, church and state, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, Judicial Reform, Politics, privatization, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools church and state, Politics, religion, Republicans, School Choice, school vouchers, separation of church and state, Supreme Court, Taxation

Finally some good news!

A U.S. Supreme Court decision yesterday pokes a hole in the separation of church and state. But that hole goes both ways.

Justices ruled 7-2 that Missouri could not withhold tax dollars to resurface a playground at a church preschool simply on the grounds that it’s a religious institution.

Therefore, one can expect any day now a ruling that the church can’t be exempted from paying taxes for the same reason.

Here’s the key issue.

Traditionally, the government doesn’t pay for the church. But now our highest court in the land has ruled that’s discriminatory!

Never mind that Missouri actually relented in this case and paid for the concrete anyway making the entire ruling moot and something that no other Supreme Court in history would have voted on because doing so would expose justices as being activists legislating from the bench.

No. Now that Republicans stole the seat of President Barack Obama’s rightful nominee, Merrick Garland, with President Donald Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch (i.e. Scalia 2.0), the court is a decidedly fascist institution.

In other words, it’s no longer a body of scholarly justices dedicated to interpreting the law. It’s now a shell corporation of paid corporate lobbyists issuing justifications to support the mandates of the billionaire class.

The five wealthiest people in the country have as much money as 750 million people – each. And most of these mega-rich want to destroy our public school system so they can hoover up tax dollars into their private portfolios. (Once you’ve got that much money, it’s just a game where you’re playing against other multi-billionaires to see who can get all the money, flip over the board and proclaim themselves King.)

To do this, they need school vouchers to help destabilize the system. Chop it down, remove any pretense of accountability to taxpayers about how that money is being spent and then sweep up that sweet, sweet money.

It also has the added benefit of ensuring the next generation is dumb enough to – I don’t know – continue voting for reality TV stars as President.

But that’s just the most obvious implication.

Now that the state has been shown to be responsible to support the church, the reverse has also been proven: the church has responsibilities to support the state.

That’s right. No more tax free status for houses of worship.

Get ready to dig deep into your pockets, parishioners. Uncle Sam needs a new pair of shoes.

Who’s paying for all those needless wars of aggression? The Church Lady! That’s who!

Where are we going to get the money to keep up the counterproductive war on drugs? The collection plate!

Yep. The assembled flock is about to get fleeced!

What conservatives seem to forget is that the wall of separation between church and state wasn’t erected just to protect the state from influence by religion. It also was set up to protect religion from the state.

Once you have money flowing from one to the other, regulations are soon to follow.

Expect your cute little parochial school to put away the Bible and replace it with “The Origin of Species”.

What? Your faith compels you to believe in the Creation of Man by God and not scientific evolution of organisms through heritable traits? I guess you’ll just have to teach the controversy.

Some people in America still think that there’s value in having both public and private schools. They seem to think that it’s actually a benefit having school systems where people are taught differently. But this new ruling paves the way (pun intended) to breaking down the walls between each type of institution.

Yes, public schools will become more like religious schools. But religious schools will also become more like public schools.

The entire education system will become one big watered down whole. And – giggle – those pushing for it actually call the process “School Choice”!

Oh the plutocrats will do their best to cover it all up with culture war nonsense. You’ll hear hours of cable news blather about poor conservative bakers fighting not to make cupcakes for gay people. But behind this high profile grist for the mill will be active efforts at homogenization, government overreach and oligarchy.

There’s one way in which this is good news. Some people have always thought churches were getting off easy, that they were being allowed undue influence on politics without having to pay the entrance fee of taxation like the rest of us.

However, this was only ever true at some houses of worship. Others were dedicated to spirituality, community and charity while eschewing affairs of state altogether.

This new ruling rips away protections from those authentically beneficent congregations as it does those more politically inclined. It exposes the preacher and the partisan equally.

Moreover, anyone who doesn’t want their tax dollars supporting someone else’s religious beliefs can expect their cries to fall on deaf ears. Christians will fund Muslims and Jews will fund Christians and all will pay for the Church of Satan and whatever sect is formed to take advantage of this brave new source of tax revenue. Religion is now decidedly in the public domain and all that goes with it.

The results are bound to displease everyone – except the mega-rich.

In short, you can’t tear down the rules that were set up to protect everyone without opening us all up to ruin.

America’s religious people are about to find that out.

It’s almost poetic justice.

Get ready to reap what you sow.

gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

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