The Compromise of 2015

[Burger Fan]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

You need a firm grasp of rates, ratios, percentages, totals and how they interact when discussing numbers. You may not be able to comprehend it but I can.


Anyone with an understanding of percentages and how they would relate to the total is immediately going to understand how this can be a deceptive statement. This is not necessarily indicative of a low total. The total that the state contributes to education is average compared to other states.

These numbers are not exact but pretty close, I'm using them for an example to hopefully educate you how that statement is deceptive.


Pennsylvania:
Total per student - $15,000
State Contribution - $5400 or 36%
Local Contribution - $9600 or 64%

An Average State in the US:
Total per student - $10,000
State Contribution - $5000 or 50%
Local Contribution - $5000 or 50%

As you can see in our second example the percentage is higher however the total is lower. Hopefully that has cleared things up for you.

It's not my grasp that needs work here. Your understanding of the issue is poor and your use of averages to make your point is even worse. Your numbers are completely wrong for a number of reasons, starting with the most obvious.


Pennsylvania does not spend $15,000 per student. The most recent year we have data for, FY 2013 puts PA per student spending at 13,846, not $15K. I know where you got that number though, you looked up "total spending" and ran with the idea, carving it into state and local to try to make a point.


unfortunately it doesn't seem you understand that the federal government does indeed contribute money to per student spending- which does not come out of the state budget. Strike one.


Second, you are again willfully ignoring what others have said regarding funding. "Averages" are not useful when discussing per student funding, because averages are easily skewed by outliers. Bryn Athyn spends $26,000 per student, 90% of it funded with local money. Mount Carmel Spends 8,000. Between them they have an average per student spending of $17,000! surely that means everything is JUST FINE, right? Obviously not. Having school spending tied to local property taxes means wealthy districts overspend while poor districts end up in a death spiral of high property taxes and low funding.


On top of that, 36% of PA funding coming from the state doesn't mean all districts get a third of their funding from the state. We lack a funding formula and state distribution of education dollars is completely arbitrary- depending more on how connected your state representative is than what kind of fiscal need your district has. 219 of the state's 500 districts receive less than 36% of their funding through state dollars.


http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal...2011-2012.xlsx


(you'll need to restrict that excel document to "category 1" entities, since there are charters in there that muddy the numbers.) This number is even worse than it looks, since those school districts getting 10-20% of their funding from the state are balanced out by distressed high poverty districts like the chester-upland school district- which TECHNICALLY receive 77% of their funding from the state, only to be bankrupted by having to pay charter schools, funneling that state money outside of the district!

Public charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, have been growing to the point that they educate nearly half the students who live in the Chester Upland district. Chester Upland pays local charter schools about $64 million in tuition payments — more than it receives in state school aid.

Yes, you read that correctly. Chester Upland receives NEGATIVE MONEY from the state, despite 77% of it's budget technically coming from Harrisburg. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...64b_story.html


Strike two.


Finally- why on earth would you compare what things cost in Pennsylvania to the national average without taking cost of living into account? You cannot pay a teacher in PA what you can pay a teacher in rural Nebraska, because the cost of living is too high. You cannot compare maintenance and upkeep costs for a state in the snow belt to one where it's sunny year round. When comparing PA to nearby states like NY and NJ, PA's spending is drastically lower- PA spends $3700 less per student than NJ, and $6000 less than New York. Strike Three.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Burger Fan

It's not my grasp that needs work here. Your understanding of the issue is poor and your use of averages to make your point is even worse. Your numbers are completely wrong for a number of reasons, starting with the most obvious.

<sigh>


We'll do it again with real numbers from 2013.
American FactFinder - Search

Pennsylvania:
Total revenue per student - $16,644
Revenue from the State - $6,014 or 36%
Revenue from Local - $9368 or 56%
Revenue from the Feds - $1,262 or 8%

Averages in the US(excluding DC):
Total Revenue per student - $12,680
Revenue from the State - $6306 or 50%
Revenue from Local - $5214 or 41%
Revenue from the Feds - $1159 or 9%




As you can plainly see my guesstimates in the previous posts to illustrate why the percentage is low is accurate enough. One other thing to add is funding schemes among the states varies widely, Vermont and Hawaii for example have less than $1K coming from the local revenue but are in the top spenders.

The bottom line is that my statement that the State's contribution to education was middle of the road is 100% accurate. You cannot use a percentage of the total for this comparison, anybody doing so doesn't understand the math or is purposely being deceitful.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Burger Fan

Obviously not. Having school spending tied to local property taxes means wealthy districts overspend while poor districts end up in a death spiral of high property taxes and low funding.

Penalizing wealthy districts becsue they can afford it is a race to the bottom.

219 of the state's 500 districts receive less than 36% of their funding through state dollars.

LOL, again you are not understanding the math. It would be the wealthy districts driving that statistic.

(you'll need to restrict that excel document to "category 1" entities, since there are charters in there that muddy the numbers.) This number is even worse than it looks, since those school districts getting 10-20% of their funding from the state are balanced out by distressed high poverty districts like the chester-upland school district- which TECHNICALLY receive 77% of their funding from the state, only to be bankrupted by having to pay charter schools, funneling that state money outside of the district!


Yes, you read that correctly. Chester Upland receives NEGATIVE MONEY from the state, despite 77% of it's budget technically coming from Harrisburg. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...64b_story.html

How do the charter school's educational achievements compare?

Finally- why on earth would you compare what things cost in Pennsylvania to the national average without taking cost of living into account? You cannot pay a teacher in PA what you can pay a teacher in rural Nebraska, because the cost of living is too high.

Again you are not understanding the math. What Nebraska is paying a teacher drives the average down. What New York is paying a teacher drives it up. The cost per student in PA firmly puts in the top ten.

---------------------------


Withing the last two decades spending per student has doubled in PA and that's adjusted for inflation. Are we any better off now that we were 20 years ago? Despite this increased spending test scores on SAT's and other standardized tests have remain flatlined. Throwing money at the problem has not worked thus far so there is no reason to expect it will now.

[BPP1999]

Yesterday, unions (I.e. Democrats) supposedly opposed the pension bill because it did nothing to provide cash now for the budget, while at the same time admonishing Republicans for trying to sell off the state stores (which will only provide a short-term infusion of cash). Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

[thecoalman]

Regardless of whether it's short term infusion of cash or not the state stores only profit a little over 100 million on 2 billion in sales. They don't need to make a profit but the citizens should see a benefit of lower prices, availability and service. That is just not happening.

That said the the excise tax is about 1 to 3 dollars more per gallon than nearby states:

State Sales, Gasoline, Cigarette, and Alcohol Tax Rates by State, 2000-2014 | Tax Foundation

[thedirtypirate]

The house does not want to compromise. They send BS to the governors table for him to sign. Listen people, if you keep following the ways of our republican house we are going to have the state's credit rating downgraded! It needs to be fixed. The state needs to be fixed.