By Paul Socolar

– Following up on Gov. Wolf’s line-item veto of a Republican budget package last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has released its plan for distributing six months’ worth of education aid to school districts across the state and has started sending out the dollars – 2.8 billion of them.

Philadelphia is getting $518 million.

The governor is holding back on the rest of the year’s education aid, hoping to force the legislature back to the table to reconsider his proposal for a major increase in school funding.

The state’s emergency education allocations announced this week are based on the total dollars approved by the legislature in the budget that Wolf rejected. The administration is sending school districts 45 percent of their projected basic education funding for the year and 100 percent of their funding from a separate education block grant program.

According to a Department of Education spreadsheet, the $518 million that Philadelphia schools are slated to receive for the first six months of the year works out to a little less than half of what the governor would have allocated if he had accepted the Republican budget plan and provided a full year of funding. The aid consists of $456 million in basic education funding and $62 million from the Ready to Learn block grant.

In allocating new education dollars, Wolf has made a couple of decisions that ruffle feathers. He has prioritized restoring past cuts to the basic education funding formula, and he has devoted a $58 million increase in the Ready to Learn block grant program to restoring a portion of the charter school reimbursement that districts serving charter school students used to receive before it was eliminated by the Corbett administration.

Republicans in Harrisburg are complaining about the decision, saying that the administration’s allocations are not consistent with the bipartisan “framework” that state leaders had agreed to last month – which House Republicans subsequently backed away from.

Susan Gobreski of Education Voters Pennsylvania praised the allocations. “The governor is working very hard to come up with something fair that remediates the damage that’s been done by past cuts,” she said. “We should drive out funding to the districts that were hardest hit.”

Gobreski observed that by allocating $58 million in new money toward restoring the charter school reimbursement, the Wolf administration is favoring districts with large numbers of charter school students. That will ultimately help fill the coffers of charter schools by raising their per-pupil reimbursement.

But the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools says that charters are being shortchanged – that charters should be receiving block grant dollars now, directly from the state.

Tim Eller, executive director of the Keystone Alliance, says the Ready to Learn block grant program was established in 2014 to fund all schools, district and charter, on a per-pupil basis.

In a statement, Eller said, “On behalf of its members and all brick-and-mortar charter schools across the state, the Keystone Alliance calls on the Wolf administration to distribute the Ready-to-Learn Block Grant as intended.”

Source – http://www.thenotebook.org/articles/2016/01/05/wolf-administration-makes-down-payment-on-education-funding-favoring-districts-hurt-by-cuts

By ERRIN HAINES WHACK Associated Press

– Philadelphia Mayor-elect Jim Kenney bristles at the label “progressive.”

“How about fairness?” he said in a recent interview. “When you know something’s unfair, it’s unfair. There are certain things that you have to acknowledge are the case and then work to fix them.”

Jim Kenney is not African-American but few white politicians are as comfortable discussing issues of inequality, mass incarceration and policing. The 57-year-old Irish-American, South Philly native’s positions have earned him comparisons with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Kenney, 57, says poverty will be his top issue when he takes office Monday as the 99th mayor of the nation’s poorest big city.

Action News will have complete, live coverage of the Mayoral Inauguration. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. Monday. 6abc.com will be streaming the entire event as it happens.

He will succeed Philadelphia’s third black mayor, Michael Nutter. Kenney’s November election is credited, in part, to strong support from the black community – something Kenney says he considers a “huge responsibility” as he prepares to take office.

“I have to provide things that will give people an equal footing when it comes to their future development and success and the reaching of their potential,” he said.

That includes his pledge to bring universal pre-K to the city and creating more jobs, including for former felons.

In the two decades he served as a city councilman before his election in November, Kenney worked on inequality, as well as immigration, gay rights and criminal justice reform. Kenney points to his Irish roots and Jesuit upbringing as the influences that make him sensitive to these issues.

As mayor, Kenney said he is ready to do more.

Soon after he was elected, he traveled to Cincinnati to learn about that city’s community schools model, which would bring a variety of services – from nutrition to healthcare to mental health resources – under one building. He also wants to close the city’s biggest jail and said he has no plans to build a new one.

Kenney also cited as a priority improving relations between citizens and the Philadelphia Police Department, which will get department veteran Richard Ross as its new leader when outgoing chief Charles Ramsey retires as Nutter leaves office.

“I understand white privilege,” Kenney said. “I’ve never been stopped and frisked. The only reason why I haven’t been is because I’m a white man, period. I can’t get offended or mean or mad about it. Give it to me, and we’ll try to work our way through it.”

Kenney said that in some districts, the police-community relationship is a good one, but he worries that Philadelphia could be the next Ferguson, Missouri – where a white police officer’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black man caused unrest.

“I’m concerned about it every day,” Kenney said, adding that he wants a more diverse police force and would like to see training for all officers on civil rights history.

Kenney said he has been doing a lot of listening in the weeks since his election, holding town halls and chatting up people on the subway – which he has promised to keep taking as mayor.

“It is the best way to stay in touch with people,” Kenney said of riding SEPTA, the city’s public transit system. “I think people appreciate the fact that you don’t think you’re any better than they are, ’cause I don’t and I’m not. And I’ve done public life before, but I haven’t been the mayor before.”

It’s the kind of plain-speaking and straight-talking locals got accustomed to through his Twitter account, though citizens should expect a kinder Kenney on social media going forward.

“I’ve learned that if I’m going to tweet, it needs to be something positive,” he said sheepishly. “There’s a certain level of dignity you need to maintain – even me.”

Source – http://6abc.com/news/jim-kenney-philadelphias-99th-mayor-takes-office-monday/1144467/

By The Pa. AFL-CIO

– Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder share Governor Wolf’s frustration and anger towards the Republican leadership in the State House, who decided last week to leave town rather than finish their work on the long-overdue budget.

By using his authority to veto portions of the GOP’s out-of-balance budget – rather than vetoing it in its entirety – Wolf is ensuring that badly needed funding will begin to flow to schools and cash-strapped county agencies and non-profits while still demanding that the legislature return to session and pass a balanced budget that addresses the significant needs of the Commonwealth.

“The House GOP budget was incomplete, unbalanced, and severely short-changed our public schools, while adding to a ballooning structural deficit,” said President Bloomingdale. “It is unacceptable that the State House dismissed their members to return home rather than finishing their work on behalf of Pennsylvania’s 12.8 million residents.”

“In his press conference this morning, Governor Wolf stated that he was ‘expressing the outrage that all of us should feel about the garbage the Republican legislative leaders have tried to dump on us,’ and we should all be outraged” said Secretary-Treasurer Snyder. “The stubborn refusal of Turzai and others in the State House to compromise, even with members of their own party, is holding the Commonwealth hostage and it has to end.”

On behalf of the 800,000 working men and women who make up the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, we urge the legislature to get back to work on passing a fair and balanced budget that will move Pennsylvania forward.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6709

To Our Philadelphia Area Labor Community and Beyond,

As we enjoy this Holiday season, let us be thankful for the things we have, to those who have forged the way to make them possible and for the will and determination to continue to fight so that future generations may also enjoy them.

As is the union way, let us also keep in our thoughts our service men and women in harms way and continue to give back to those less fortunate so that they too may live a life of dignity and pride!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

In Solidarity,

From Everyone at PhillyLabor and
Today In PhillyLabor Radio

By Matthew L. Mandel

– Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. referred to a recent education bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate as a “recipe for disaster.” That phrase also describes the School Reform Commission’s decision to extend Hite’s contract by five years, with two years remaining on the original.

In a statement, SRC Chair Marjorie Neff said it was the right time to lock in Hite for the long term, lauding him for demonstrating “strong leadership through an extraordinarily difficult time.” I wonder if she feels the same about losing scores of superb classroom teachers who left to work somewhere they feel valued and respected, or the many more who retired because they couldn’t take the conditions and mistreatment in the School District of Philadelphia anymore.

Neff, a retired teacher and principal, nearly discarded 50 years of collective bargaining progress when she supported cancellation of the teachers’ contract last year. She called that decision one of the most difficult of her life. She doesn’t appear nearly as troubled, however, that a district on financial life-support has spent millions on bad contracts and the endless pursuit of judicial relief from its obligations.

One could argue that Hite has achieved everything he was hired to do and, thus, has earned another contract. Bright, tireless, ambitious, and evidently dynamic, I’m sure there’s a lot to admire about him.

It would also be unfair to suggest that Hite alone is responsible for the catastrophic failure of reform efforts here since the state takeover. Neff and others likely will say that Hite just hasn’t had the resources to achieve his goals. No one knows how that feels more than the district’s teachers.

I’m puzzled by the apparent urgency to get this contract extension done now, with no state budget, stagnant test scores, unhealthy and deplorable conditions in school buildings, and taxpayers who believe they have no voice in education decisions. Could it be that the district was afraid of losing him? If so, it points to another troubling pattern that has festered under state control of Philadelphia’s schools.

In a district with the highest child poverty rate in America – and dedicated but demoralized employees that have gone four years without a raise – the unelected and unaccountable SRC continues to place its emphasis on meeting the needs of central office management and charter-school operators rather than of the children and educators who spend their lives in Philly’s public schools.

This contract extension is just the latest example of how the SRC’s priorities don’t align with what’s important to the district’s educators, children, and caregivers. And the latest example of this dichotomy should serve as a rallying cry to return to local control of our schools.

Our district educates some of the nation’s neediest children, but lacks even basic supplies and enough critical staff to compensate for the unfair hand dealt to many of our kids. Yet, the SRC has prioritized a contract extension that affords Hite the security that Philadelphia’s teachers, children, and caregivers can only dream of.

All of this reflects, more than ever, a pressing need to restore sanity and local control of our schools. A school board that was accountable to the public wouldn’t be as shameless and cavalier about pursuing such misplaced priorities.

Continuing to indulge the SRC’s pursuits is truly a recipe for disaster.

(Matthew L. Mandel is a teacher in the School District of Philadelphia)

Source – http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=%2Fphilly%2Fopinion&id=363092881