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School Taxes and Education Quality: Rendell's Rhetoric Versus
Reality
By Matthew J. Brouillette
Governor Rendell's inaugural speech reiterated his campaign promise to reform
Pennsylvania's school funding and property tax system while boosting the state's
share of total school revenue to 50 percent. But now its time for Rendell's
campaign rhetoric to meet economic reality.
During the campaign, Rendell claimed that this goal could be achieved by using
monies generated through ferreting out waste and inefficiencies in state
government, putting slot machines at the racetracks, redirecting a significant
portion of the new cigarette tax revenues, and a tax increase if necessary.
However, even one of Rendell's top advisors admitted his numbers don't add up.
Donna Cooper, Rendell's new director of policy and former executive director of
Good Schools Pennsylvania, says it will take a near $3 billion state tax
increase to meet the Governor's arbitrarily set goal of 50 percent state share.
But before the governor sends another dollar to the public schools, the
following facts about the cost and quality of public education in Pennsylvania
should be considered: During the 2000-01 school year, Pennsylvania public
schools received an estimated $16.9 billion and spent, on average, more than
$9,900 per pupil. When adjusted for the cost of living, Pennsylvania spent
more per student than 47 states and the District of Columbia. In addition,
Pennsylvania teachers received the highest average salaries in the nation at
nearly $53,000, when
adjusted for the cost of living. Of course, having the highest teacher salaries
would be a good thing if we paid teachers according to competency, performance
or demand.
Most people acknowledge that a quality education requires an investment of both
time and money. But what are we truly getting in return for the billions of tax
dollars handed over to the public school system every year?
Unfortunately, by almost any measure, more dollars have failed to
produce more scholars. For example, over the last seven years, public school
expenditures increased more than 131 percent faster than the rate of inflation,
while academic performance on the SAT college entrance exam improved by only 0.8
percent. Yet despite this "improvement," Pennsylvania still placed 46th out of
50 states and the District of Columbia on the SAT in 2002.
On the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test, 51 percent of all test
takers in the state's Class of 2003 scored so low on the math portion that they
are eligible to take it again. Thirty-eight percent and 51 percent of test
takers scored poorly enough on the writing and reading portions, respectively,
to also qualify to retake the test.
In other words, Pennsylvanians keep paying more and getting less year after
year. With such lackluster academic performance indicators and ever-increasing
infusions of taxpayer cash, it is hard to believe that Commonwealth citizens
aren't more upset than Enron stockholders.
Long-term solutions to high costs and poor performance in our public schools
will require the political courage to do more than simply shift the school tax
burden away from property taxes and add more state money to local school
budgets. If Governor Rendell hopes to improve the quality of public education
in Pennsylvania, he must embrace the powerful incentives of parental choice and
school competition.
After all, it is choice for consumers and competition among providers that
incessantly spurs innovation and improves our quality of life on a daily basis.
It is the marketplace-not government monopolies-that have provided the world
everything good from desktop computers to life-saving medicines. In education,
it will be parents who can exercise choice among competing schools that will
finally fuel the engine that drives
the continuous quality improvements that currently elude Pennsylvania's public
school system today.
While skyrocketing property taxes are driving the current school funding debate,
it is really the quality of life for Pennsylvania and
Pennsylvania's children that is at stake. So instead of focusing on the state's
50 percent share, Governor Rendell should spend 100 percent of his political
capital on creating more educational choices for children and increased
competition among schools.
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Matthew J. Brouillette is president of The Commonwealth Foundation, a
non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research and educational institute in
Harrisburg, PA. For more information, visit
www.CommonwealthFoundation.org.
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