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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. Jake Wheatley |
   
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Wheatley votes to advance 'historic' boost for education funding
HARRISBURG, June 4 – State Rep. Jake Wheatley, D-Pittsburgh, today voted to send the full House of Representatives a bill to increase the amount and fairness of education funding in Pennsylvania.
Wheatley cast the vote as a member of the House Education Committee, which approved the bill.
"This is a historic moment for education funding in this Commonwealth," said Wheatley, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation. "Under this bill, students' futures would depend less on their community's local tax base and more on their own abilities and efforts. Young people from the Hill District and the South Side deserve the same chance to succeed as young people from Fox Chapel and Bradford Woods."
Last December, the state Board of Education released the findings of a "costing-out" study the legislature commissioned to address the issues of adequacy and equity. Adequacy refers to the costs for all students to attain state academic standards, regardless of where they live. Equity refers to the growing gap between high- and low-spending districts and those implications. This report provided a Pennsylvania per-student dollar target for achieving adequate funding levels in each of the school districts. According to the report, 471 of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts spend less than the defined level of adequate funding.
The bill Wheatley voted to approve today (H.B. 2449) would address the funding gap by implementing Gov. Rendell's proposal to increase the state share of education funding by $2.6 billion over the next six years. For the 2008-09 fiscal year that begins July 1, the bill would provide an increase of $291 million, or 6 percent.
The new funding would be provided based on factors such as each school district’s tax burden and level of local wealth. All school districts would receive at least a 1.5 percent increase over their 2007-08 funding level.
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