Corbett, GOP lawmakers press school-related bills
Posted: Friday, June 8, 2012 5:30 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Corbett and his fellow Republicans who lead the state Legislature worked behind closed doors on Thursday to develop a package of public school and education-related legislation that they can complete before lawmakers leave Harrisburg for their traditional summer break.
A broad array of bills are floating around the Legislature, and Corbett came into office last year forcefully trying to revamp the way public schools are treated by the state, as he sought to instill a conservative sense of private-sector competition while cutting state aid to schools.
Thus far, little of his education agenda has passed, and one group, Washington, D.C.-based Freedomworks, a tea party umbrella group that has raised millions of dollars from wealthy conservatives, began running radio ads this week in Pennsylvania criticizing "inaction" by the governor and lawmakers.
Lawmakers who came out of the meeting suggested that the top of the list will include an overhaul of how charter schools are regulated and an increase in a $75 million tax credit on philanthropic contributions to subsidize private school scholarships or nonprofit education groups.
"Education reform issues are clearly there," said House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Jefferson. "We're looking for what we can get done."
Legislation is possible to address longstanding public school complaints that cyber-charter schools are grossly overpaid by the state, and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said there is broad agreement on a Senate-passed bill that reconfigures the special education funding formula.
June will be dominated by talk of the new state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, but it also may be the last, best chance for Republican-controlled Harrisburg to advance a conservative education agenda. The two-year session ends Nov. 30, and the post-summer break voting calendar tends to be light in election years. Meanwhile, legislative leaders have pledged not to take any votes in the "lame-duck" period that follows the Nov. 6 general election, when voters will decide on every House seat and half the Senate.
The prospects for three other priorities of the governor's heading into June are less clear.
After a battle, the Senate narrowly passed a school "voucher" bill in October in an effort to make thousands of public school children, primarily from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Reading, Chester and Allentown, eligible for taxpayer-paid tuition aid to a private or parochial school that chooses to participate in the program.
It has stalled in the House amid opposition from public-school proponents, and there's no clear-cut alternative or even a decision to pursue an alternative in June.
"We have already pretty well established that we don't have the support in the House for" the Senate's voucher bill, Smith said. "Beyond that, something's possible, but I wouldn't put it in the 'highly likely' category."
Asked if he knows what is possible, he said, "I know what I think it is," but he would not elaborate.
The governor has pushed to broaden the criteria on how public-school teacher performance is evaluated, but a bill he supports has awaited a House vote since it emerged from the Education Committee in November.
Meanwhile, lawmakers did not mention another bill the governor supports to pave the way for state takeovers of Pennsylvania school districts veering toward financial collapse. The Senate Education Committee approved it last month, but it faces changes after Democrats attacked it as a backdoor move to bust teachers' unions and hand schools to private operators in districts already hamstrung by cutbacks in state aid and threadbare local tax bases.
It would replace a piecemeal approach used by the state in the past to deal with struggling districts, and would immediately affect four districts: Duquesne, Harrisburg, York and Chester-Upland, which sued the state in federal court in January after it threatened to shut down due to lack of money.
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Similar article in today's Phila. Inquirer.
As Pa. budget deadline nears, GOP legislators vow action on thorny school issues
June 07, 2012|By Angela Couloumbis and INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU
HARRISBURG -- They don't have a state budget deal yet, but Gov. Corbett and top Republican legislators appear to be in agreement on one matter: that a number of so-called education reform bills will finally come up for a vote before the legislature breaks for the summer.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) said Thursday that "there is broad agreement" on moving several pieces of legislation to Corbett's desk before the budget's July 1 deadline, including a bill that would change the way charter schools are regulated; one that would expand a state program that gives tax breaks to companies for underwriting scholarship programs; and yet another that would establish a legislative commission to develop a new distribution formula for some special-education funding.
Also a possibility, said Pileggi, is tackling a bill that would toughen criteria for evaluating Pennsylvania public school teachers.
But one of the most far-reaching and controversial education issues in the Capitol -- school vouchers -- does not appear, at least for now, to be on track for getting vetted in the next three weeks, GOP legislative leaders conceded Thursday.
"Something's possible" on vouchers, said House Speaker Sam Smith (R., Jefferson), "but I wouldn't put it in the ‘highly likely' category."
Still, as they emerged Thursday from another round of closed-door budget talks with the governor, Smith and others said discussions have been focused on finally moving education bills that have long been a priority for Corbett.
In October of last year, the governor unveiled his education reform plan, calling for state-funded tuition vouchers to help lower-income families transfer their children out of failing public schools, as well as measures to ensure better teacher and student performance.
At the time, Corbett said he wanted to extend vouchers to students in the bottom five percent of failing schools whose families are at or near the federal poverty line. The voucher could be used to help pay for a child's education at a private, parochial or charter school. The governor also said he wanted to craft a new system to base teacher evaluations in part on student performance, and use that as a basis for deciding merit pay, tenure and future employment.
Corbett also called for a statewide commission to evaluate and regulate charter schools. The panel would have the power to pull the plug on ones that are underperforming.
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