1

1

2 COMMONWEALTH OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3 APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

4 MAIN CAPITOL 5 ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 6

7 BUDGET HEARING DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 8

9 MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2017 10:14 A.M. 10

11 BEFORE: HONORABLE STANLEY SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN 12 HONORABLE JOSEPH MARKOSEK, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE 13 HONORABLE SHERYL DELOZIER HONORABLE GEORGE DUNBAR 14 HONORABLE HONORABLE 15 HONORABLE HONORABLE 16 HONORABLE HONORABLE WARREN KAMPF 17 HONORABLE FRED KELLER HONORABLE 18 HONORABLE NICK MICCARELLI HONORABLE 19 HONORABLE HONORABLE MIKE PEIFER 20 HONORABLE JEFF PYLE HONORABLE MARGUERITE QUINN 21 HONORABLE HONORABLE JAMIE SANTORA 22 HONORABLE HONORABLE KEVIN BOYLE 23 HONORABLE

24

25 2

1 BEFORE (continued):

2 HONORABLE HONORABLE 3 HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN HONORABLE MARIA DONATUCCI 4 HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN HONORABLE EDWARD GAINEY 5 HONORABLE PATTY KI M HONORABLE 6 HONORABLE -BRANEKY HONORABLE MIKE O'BRIEN 7 HONORABLE HONORABLE 8 NON-COMMI TTEE MEMBERS: 9 HONORABLE CRIS DUSH HONORABLE MARK GILLEN 10 HONORABLE RON MARSICO HONORABLE ERIC NELSON 11 HONORABLE KRISTIN PHILLIPS-HILL HONORABLE RICK SACCONE 12 HONORABLE CRIAG STAATS HONORABLE 13 HONORABLE STEVE MCCARTER HONORABLE 14 HONORABLE HONORABLE JAMES R. ROEBUCK 15 HONORABLE MIKE SCHLOSSBERG HONORABLE W. CURTIS THOMAS 16

17 COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: DAVID DONLEY, MAJORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 18 RITCHIE LaFAVER, MAJORITY DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MIRIAM FOX, DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 19 TARA TREES, DEMOCRATIC CHIEF COUNSEL

20

21

22

23 BRENDA J. PARDUN, RPR P. O. BOX 278 24 MAYTOWN, PA 17550 717-940-6528 25 3

1 INDEX

2 NAME PAGE

3 PEDRO RIVERA 8 SECRETARY 4 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

5 WIL DEL PILAR 31 DEPUTY SECRETARY 6 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY & HIGHER EDUCATION 7 PA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

8 GLENN MILLER 37 DEPUTY SECRETARY 9 OFFICE OF COMMONWEALTH LIBRARIES PA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 10 DANIELLE MARIANO 98 11 DIRECTOR BUREAU OF BUDGET & FISCAL MANAGEMENT 12 PA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

13 MATT STEM 125 DEPUTY SECRETARY 14 OFFICE OF ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION 15 PA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

16 SUSANN MORRIS 135 DEPUTY SECRETARY 17 OFFICE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT & EARLY LEARNING 18 PA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

19

20

21

22

23

24

25 4

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Good morning,

3 everyone. Happy Monday.

4 I wanted to remind everybody in the room

5 to either turn off your cell phones or put them On

6 silent.

7 Also, Mr. Secretary and your staff, if you

8 would, make sure that when you speak you speak

9 right into the microphone so that they can pick

10 that up.

11 I think I'll start off this morning by

12 introducing our committee, and then we'll talk

13 about our guests.

14 I’ll start off. Chairman of -- yeah,

15 chairman of the Education Committee, how quickly I

16 forget -- . I’m from York County, and

17 chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

18 MR. DONLEY: Hi, Dave Donley, Republican

19 staff executive director to the committee.

20 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Good morning.

21 Representative George Dunbar, Westmoreland County,

22 56th District.

23 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Good morning. I’m

24 Marguerite Quinn, from the 143rd District, which is

25 parts of central and upper Bucks County. 5

1 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: I’m Warren Kampf,

2 from the 157th District, in Chester and Montgomery

3 counties.

4 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Keith Greiner,

5 43rd District, Lancaster County.

6 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Good morning,

7 Mr. Secretary. Fred Keller, 85th District, Snyder

8 and Union.

9 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Brad Roae, Crawford

10 County and Erie County.

11 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Garth Everett,

12 Lycoming and Union.

13 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Jason Ortitay,

14 46th District, Allegheny and Washington.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Representative Seth

16 Grove, York County, 196th District.

17 Good to see you again, Secretary.

18 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Curt Sonney, 4th

19 Legislative District, Erie County. Good morning.

20 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: Good morning.

21 Jamie Santora, 163rd District, Delaware County.

22 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Good morning.

23 Marcia Hahn, 138th District, Northampton County.

24 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Good morning.

25 Mike Peifer, 139th District, Pike and Wayne 6

1 counties.

2 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Jerry Knowles,

3 124th District, which includes portions of Berks,

4 Carbon, and Schuylkill counties.

5 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Good morning.

6 Sheryl Delozier, Cumberland County, 88th District.

7 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Good morning.

8 Duane Milne, 167th District, Chester County.

9 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Sue Helm, 104th,

10 Dauphin and Lebanon County.

11 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Karen Boback,

12 House District 117, Luzerne, Lackawanna, and

13 Wyoming counties. Good morning.

14 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Good morning.

15 Joe Markosek, 25th Legislative District, Allegheny

16 County, and the chairman of the Democratic

17 Appropriations Committee.

18 MS. FOX: Hi. Miriam Fox, executive

19 Director for committee Democrats.

20 REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK: Good morning.

21 Jim Roebuck, 188th Legislative District, Democratic

22 chair, House Education Committee.

23 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Good morning,

24 Mr. Secretary. Madeleine Dean, 153rd, Montgomery

25 County. 7

1 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Leanna

2 Krueger-Braneky, 161st District, Delaware County.

3 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Good morning.

4 Kevin Boyle, Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.

5 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Good morning.

6 Maria Donatucci, 185th District, Philadelphia and

7 Delaware County.

8 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Good morning. Mary

9 Jo Daley, 148th District, in Montgomery County.

10 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Good morning. Tim

11 Briggs, Montgomery County, 149th District.

12 REPRESENTATIVE ROZZI: Good morning. Mark

13 Rozzi, 126th District, Berks County.

14 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Good morning.

15 Peter Schweyer, 22nd Legislative District, Lehigh

16 County, city of Allentown.

17 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Hi. , 103rd

18 District, city of Harrisburg.

19 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Representative

20 Marty Flynn, 113th District, Lackawanna County.

21 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Good morning.

22 Representative Donna Bullock, Philadelphia County,

23 195 District.

24 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Good morning. Ed

25 Gainey. I represent the city of Pittsburgh in 8

1 Allegheny County, 24th Legislative District.

2 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Good morning.

3 S t ephen Ki ns ey, Philadelphia County, 201st

4 Legislative District.

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We've been

6 joined by several other members who are guests

7 today: Representative Pashinski, Representative

8 Schlossberg, Representative McCarter,

9 Representative Tallman, Representative Saccone,

10 Representative Staats, Representative

11 Phillips-Hill.

12 With that, Mr. Secretary, would you and

13 all your staff who is going to be testifying today

14 please rise and raise your right hand?

15 PEDRO RIVERA,

16 DANIELLE MARIANO,

17 GLENN MILLER,

18 WIL DEL PILAR,

19 were duly sworn by Majority Chairman Saylor.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you. You

21 may be seated.

22 Mr. Secretary, do you have any brief

23 comments or anything before we start.

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: If I can, thank you,

25 Mr. Chairman. 9

1 I want to take a brief moment to introduce

2 the members of my team. Joining me up here today,

3 we have, to my left, Danielle Mariano, director of

4 the Bureau of Budget and Fiscal Management; to my

5 right, Dr. Wil Del Pilar, deputy secretary of the

6 Office of Postsecondary and Higher Education; and

7 to my far right, Glenn Miller, deputy secretary of

8 the Office of Commonwealth Libraries.

9 I’m not going to take too much time

10 sharing around any specifics, but we’ll try our

11 best to be as concise and direct as possible. If

12 any clarifying statements are needed, please feel

13 free to do so, but I want to make sure to maximize

14 our time today with the committee.

15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.

16 I’ll start off with a short statement

17 here. You know, providing a quality education to

18 our children is one of the most important roles

19 that we play here in state government. It’s

20 something that many in this room, on both sides of

21 the aisle, are passionate about. And I mean

22 passionate about.

23 And the job of this committee is to

24 evaluate the details of the governor’s budget

25 proposal in order to more effectively evaluate its 10

1 merit. And when it comes to education, there are

2 many details I think we're probably still missing

3 yet. And in years past, governors have laid our

4 their visions on what they want education to be.

5 This year, the proposal seems to be mainly

6 focused on increasing or decreasing certain

7 specific line items. And during this committee, we

8 want to hear from you, Mr. Secretary, about how

9 these steep cuts to people transportation will be

10 implemented, what their plan for charter schools

11 is, and how you envision the advancing career and

12 technical education, and what initiatives that are

13 planned to save this Commonwealth and the school

14 districts money while providing more quality and

15 effective education for Pennsylvania students.

16 While we know more money cannot be the

17 only answer to solving the challenges facing our

18 education system, our caucus is open to increased

19 spending in education, but it must be coupled with

20 real reforms that will improve the lives of our

21 students.

22 The status quo is not working for many

23 Pennsylvania families, and we must be willing to be

24 innovative and restructure education in order to

25 meet demands of the 21st century. 11

1 Since this hearing will be a full day, I

2 wanted to go over the layout, which I've already

3 shared with Representative Markosek. The first

4 half of this hearing this morning will deal with

5 the issues related to the operations of the

6 Department of Education, higher education,

7 community colleges, libraries, et cetera.

8 The second half, this afternoon at 1

9 o'cl ock, wi l l focus on preK-through-twelve

10 education.

11 I'm asking members to try and frame their

12 questions with this in mind. And we will have

13 plenty of time in the afternoon to ask questions

14 about preK to twelve and so forth.

15 So, with that, Chairman Markosek, any

16 comments?

17 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,

18 Chairman.

19 And thank you. Good morning. Thank you

20 for attending today.

21 Just maybe an aside, I’m a library guy. I

22 see Mr. Miller here. And, you know, I like to

23 think I’m a humble guy, too. But, Mr. Chairman, if

24 I might just pat myself on the back a little bit.

25 My favorite library in Pennsylvania is in a 12

1 community called Plum Borough. And the name on the

2 library is the Joseph Markosek Plum Community

3 Library. So, I’m very proud of that.

4 I like to read. And many years ago, I was

5 involved with the fundraising for that effort, when

6 they built it. And so, they were kind enough to

7 name it after me. So, I’m very proud of that.

8 So, anything we can do for libraries, I’m

9 all for it.

10 And I know it’s tough budget times, but,

11 nevertheless, thank you for allowing me to at least

12 get a couple of minutes of fame here relative to

13 that.

14 And thank you very much.

15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: And it’s great.

16 And, Joe, I compliment you on that, because you and

17 I are probably in the very situation. I don’t have

18 a library named after me, although I chaired the

19 building of two libraries. So, you’ve done very

20 well.

21 But I wanted to recognize Representative

22 Nelson, who’s also joined us this morning.

23 And with that, we’re going to start off

24 with questioning with Representative Everett.

25 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you, 13

1 Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary and your staff, for

2 coming today.

3 I wanted to ask a question about the

4 proposed funding for institutional assistance

5 grants. So, shift into that mode.

6 It's my understanding that there's a

7 proposal to cut funding for institutional

8 assistance grants by 50 percent. And I think

9 there’s a footnote to that that says that we’re not

10 really cutting it because we’re going to require

11 the colleges and universities that receive that

12 funding to match that. But, I mean, a 50 percent

13 cut and requiring the schools to match that, it

14 looks like a 50 percent cut to me.

15 And I got an e-mail today from the

16 president of Lycoming College, up in our area. And

17 they’re estimating that that’s going to be a cut to

18 the student grants that they’ll be able to make by

19 a hundred forty thousand dollars. I understand

20 Wilkes is estimating it’s going to cost them five

21 hundred thousand dollars.

22 And when we look at those grants, I mean,

23 those are -- that’s money that goes to Pennsylvania

24 students, most of whom are mid-income, low-income

25 families. I know at Lycoming now, for Pennsylvania 14

1 students that are attending there, their average

2 aid package as twenty-five thousand, and I know

3 that all the other private colleges and

4 universities across the state are at that level or

5 more.

6 And I’m just wondering, at a time when

7 we’re trying to help middle-income families go to

8 school, if this is where we want to be cutting a

9 program like that by 50 percent.

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: As we’re looking at the

11 recommendations made in our proposal for higher

12 education, I think it’s important -- and you may

13 hear me say this a few times today, but I think

14 it’s significant. This was an extremely difficult

15 budget year. I mean, this budget cycle. You know,

16 really, you know, engaged us to think deeply and

17 very comprehensively around the investments we’re

18 going to make, I mean, knowing that we’re currently

19 facing a three -billion-dollar shortfall.

20 The governor’s looking for two billion

21 additional dollars in inefficiencies in government,

22 making presenting a balanced budget or presenting a

23 budget that, you know, made sense and met our core

24 values to -- you know, to the general assembly was

25 no easy task. 15

1 So, many of the recommendations and

2 investments we recommended to make around higher

3 education just pretty much revolved around a number

4 of facts.

5 First, we know that we are focusing on

6 higher education attainment aligned to industry

7 certificates, two-year degrees, and four-year

8 degrees. So, we really have to broaden, you know,

9 our portfolio of options for students across the

10 Commonwealth.

11 Secondly, 70 percent of our high school

12 graduates attend public institutions -- the state’s

13 public institutions.

14 We also realize, when we’re looking at

15 specifically those institutions, the vast majority

16 of students in those communities tend to want to

17 commute or travel or attend a college that’s around

18 forty miles from their primary location. So, a lot

19 of thought was put into, you know, some of the flat

20 funding items as well as many of the areas that the

21 governor has chosen to invest in. However, we

22 knew, to submit a responsible budget, we could not

23 invest in everything.

24 You know, of course, as the secretary of

25 Education, I’d love to have been given the 16

1 opportunity to include everything as a line item,

2 but those are — you know, those are really

3 difficult decisions we had to make.

4 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: But it is -- you

5 will acknowledge that that is a 50 percent cut.

6 There’s a footnote that says that it’s not really a

7 cut, but this is a 50 percent cut to that program.

8 And it’s a program, you know, that we have. 49

9 percent of the folks who graduate from four-year

10 colleges go to private institutions, and it’s going

11 to just be a significant cut to those folks.

12 And would you agree with that?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: I think one of the

14 areas that we realize, some of the process that

15 goes into identifying how those funds are allocated

16 and distributed, I can’t say -- I can’t agree that

17 it’s a 50 percent cut, but I can agree that we did

18 not make a recommendation at this time to invest

19 additional dollars.

20 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

22 Boyle.

23 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you,

24 Secretary Rivera. I appreciate you being here. I

25 know it’s a long day. I’ll try to be as concise as 17

1 possible.

2 Just in the last year or two, it was

3 announced, for the time in American history, that

4 student loan debt actually now surpasses credit

5 card debt. And I think, in a lot of publications,

6 we’ve seen how this has had a real systematic

7 affect on young people. Young people are delaying

8 buying a home. Young people are delaying getting

9 married. Young people, maybe most importantly, are

10 delaying starting small businesses, because of just

11 the huge amount of debt that they have.

12 Here in Pennsylvania, we actually have,

13 depending on what metric you’re going to use, we

14 either have the most expensive state college system

15 or the second most expensive.

16 In your opinion, why is that?

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we’ve looked to

18 make -- over the course of the past two years, and

19 now going into the third year, the governor has

20 made -- has recommended and has made historic

21 investments in higher education because we’ve

22 realized, with reduction in higher ed over the

23 course of the previous number of years,

24 institutions of higher ed transitioned those costs

25 to the student. And we knew, as a result, in order 18

1 to afford to send a student to an institution of

2 higher ed, whether a community college, a two-year

3 college, or a four-year college, families were

4 forced to borrow more and students were forced to

5 borrow more than they historically had in the past.

6 Now, we’re also engaging in a number of

7 strategies and initiatives, moving forward, that

8 I’d love to quickly share.

9 First, of course, continuing to make an

10 investment in higher ed. But, you know, Dr. Wil

11 Del Pilar and his team have really been focusing on

12 some other opportunities as well. This year, we’re

13 going to introduce the 15-to-Finish campaign, which

14 will work to encourage students to take thirty

15 credits per year to ensure on-time graduation.

16 One of the factors we know, you know, that

17 really goes into account when we’re looking at

18 students graduating on time or student debt is that

19 they’re undercredited and then, as a result, have

20 to take a sixth year and beyond.

21 We’re also looking at a college completion

22 program. So, we currently have 1.4 million

23 Commonwealth residents with over twenty college

24 credits and no degree. So, we wrote a limited

25 grants, so hope to engage in creating college 19

1 re-engagement centers.

2 And lastly, we’re starting to involve and

3 engage high school and college counselors together

4 to better inform students around completion of a

5 FAFSA, financial aid paperwork, and just how to

6 better engage with colleges and universities.

7 But first, it was the investment, and it

8 investment’s not made in higher ed in the past that

9 led to increased student tuition.

10 And, secondly, we can do a better job of

11 engaging parents, communities, and students to make

12 better informed decisions moving forward.

13 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you. That’s

14 a very comprehensive answer.

15 I just want to make one more point. Since

16 2004, the amount of student loan debt for students

17 in the PASSHE system has gone up 70 percent. We

18 cannot keep on putting the burden financially onto

19 young people in the state. It has to stop.

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

21 And we’re at a all-time low. We’ve -- you

22 know, we’ve significantly decreased the amount

23 contributed to higher education since 2010, and,

24 you know, that’s one of the realities that the

25 governor has recognized. 20

1 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you.

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Wanted to

3 mention we have been joined by Representative Dush.

4 The next questioner is Representative

5 Peifer.

6 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Thank you,

7 Chairman.

8 And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being

9 here.

10 I just want a follow up. When you look at

11 Commonwealth demographics for students who are

12 graduating out of high school, the numbers continue

13 to decline. When I had discussions with my

14 superintendents, they talk about the use of

15 attrition to complement those numbers in the class

16 and at home, because when a teacher retires, they

17 may not have to replace that teacher. And that’s

18 how they find savings.

19 I did talk to Chancellor Brogan about

20 this, and he said, You know what, from a higher

21 education level, that does not work. Programs need

22 to be more specific. Degrees are very specific.

23 And it’s hard, through attrition, to meet that need

24 and concern as far as reduced class size.

25 I just want to know what your thoughts are 21

1 as far as the declining population of graduates in

2 the Commonwealth.

3 Thank you.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, Representative, you

5 are correct. The number of high school graduates

6 has declined, has decreased, just the actual

7 number, not as a result of, you know, our high

8 school graduation rate or percentages.

9 Now, it’s interesting, as we look at -­

10 you know, when we have conversations around the

11 transition from K-12 institutions or from high

12 school into higher ed, there are a number of

13 considerations we have to take into account. And

14 some of which is explained in what Chancellor

15 Brogan shared.

16 First, when we look at -- you know, when

17 we anticipate careers and, by the year 2020, 2025,

18 over 60 percent of careers are going to require

19 some type of postsecondary certificate, degree, or

20 advanced degree. So, that means, you know, every

21 year, the types of courses and the certificates and

22 degrees that institutions of higher ed are offering

23 evolves. When you think of just taking into

24 account the use of technology or what we like to

25 call at the STEM fields, you know, almost 80 22

1 percent of STEM-related occupations will require

2 some type of designation or degree, whether it be

3 computer science, engineering, math, et cetera.

4 So, where it be the number of students,

5 you know, may shift. It may decline. And we have

6 also noticed, in some years, it increases. But the

7 specialization that’s going to be needed to ensure

8 Pennsylvanians work in the next, you know,

9 decade -- you know, 2020 is right around the

10 corner -- we are going to have to really work with

11 our institutions of higher ed and our high schools

12 to engage much more customization to meet the needs

13 of the local community and, as a result, local

14 business and industry.

15 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: So, you’re saying

16 there may be fewer students, but they need -- more

17 students need to have these specialized degrees.

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. In order -- you

19 know, and not everything is aligned to a four-year

20 degree.

21 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Right.

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: But the vast majority

23 of Pennsylvanians to work in the global economy are

24 going to have to have some kind of

25 industry-recognized, high yield credential. 23

1 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Thank you.

2 Thank you, Chairman.

3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

4 Kinsey.

5 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 Mr. Secretary, actually, you just

8 addressed a portion of my question. Representative

9 Peifer and I were sort of, I guess, thinking along

10 the same lines. So, let me just stretch that a

11 little bit as well, because I was going to talk

12 about enrollment trends at institutions as well.

13 However, another point that the chancellor

14 brought up, as we talked about trends, as it

15 relates to PASSHE specifically, the chancellor

16 talked about the potential to consolidate in the

17 future some of the state institutions.

18 I believe you sit on the PASSHE board. Do

19 you have a feeling towards the consolidation? And

20 I think this deals with low enrollment specifically

21 at Cheyney University, I think maybe Mansfield

22 college. And, of course, alumni and administrators

23 for those two institutions, of course, are fighting

24 to maintain their own individuality and move

25 forward. 24

1 Do you have any thoughts towards that?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, first, I applaud

3 the board, the chancellor, and college presidents

4 to take on this endeavor, you know, to look at

5 potential consolidation or even consolidation of

6 programs. Because we realize, you know, a few

7 really important facts, and some of which I shared,

8 but I think it’s really worth re-mentioning. 70

9 percent of our high school graduates that go on to

10 college tend to choose those state institutions.

11 Many of those students choose the institutions that

12 are closest to home.

13 We also realize there are opportunities

14 when we look at working with, you know, with

15 government, working with local municipalities and

16 our system of higher ed to really provide

17 customization based on not only the needs of

18 students but the needs of the local business and

19 industry.

20 So, as we’re -- as, you know, they’re

21 looking at, you know, consolidation or looking at

22 potential merging of programs, services, and even

23 looking at specifically customization of programs,

24 what higher ed is going to look like, you know, in

25 the next decade is going to be vastly different 25

1 than the current traditional system we have now.

2 And I think this conversation they’re engaging in

3 will help them re-imagine how they better support

4 students graduating from high school.

5 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Great. Thank you.

6 Now, I just want to jump to a whole

7 totally different subject -- well, not subject,

8 still related to education.

9 At the federal level, there’s been -- we

10 know we have a new administration, new secretary of

11 Education. Has there been -- I guess, in your

12 position, are there any things coming down the

13 pipeline from the federal level that could impact

14 what we do, how we do, that you’re department is

15 aware of at this moment?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, there’s lots of

17 discussion what is being introduced, proposed,

18 thought about at the federal level.

19 To be honest with you, and when the

20 governor took over, you know, this administration,

21 education was, and continues to be, his number one

22 priority. And, you know, as a result, we really

23 had to hit the ground running. And we’ve met with

24 many of the individuals in this room to share our

25 thoughts about the path moving forward in 26

1 education, everything from having a robust system

2 of accountability, looking at graduation standards,

3 looking at the investments that we’re making in ed,

4 a heavy focus on career and technical education

5 pathways.

6 So, for us, you know, we’ve continued to

7 move in that direction. We haven’t allowed what’s

8 happening at the national level to distract us

9 around, you know, what Pennsylvania needs.

10 And at the end of the day, we had a really

11 good plan, moving forward. ESSA was adopted. We

12 found a way to kind of integrate our ESSA work into

13 the work that we all had agreed upon doing, moving

14 forward. And now that there’s another change,

15 we’re just going to do the same. We’re going to

16 find ways to integrate, you know, what, you know,

17 federal mandates are to meeting the needs of the

18 Commonwealth. Because, at the end of the day, you

19 know, we’re ultimately responsible for our kids.

20 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure. Right.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: And we can’t let

22 anything that happens above us distract us from

23 that mission.

24 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Well, in closing,

25 I just want to thank you, Mr. Secretary. You know, 27

1 you’ve been to Philadelphia County many times, met

2 with constituents there, as well as other

3 stakeholders. And I just appreciate the work that

4 you’re doing and just want to say thank you for

5 what you’ve done over the past few years.

6 So, thank you very much.

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you for your

8 support.

9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure.

10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

11 Dunbar.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you,

13 Mr. Chairman.

14 Thank you, Secretary.

15 Just a brief follow-up on the discussion

16 about higher ed. As you -- as you had noted,

17 higher ed is constantly evolving, and our schools

18 have constantly evolved over the years. Where

19 fifteen, twenty years ago our state system schools

20 didn’t offer all the variety of majors that they

21 presently do, and they’ve kept adding on and on, to

22 maintain university status and whatnot. So, they

23 have been trying to attract that other than

24 dwindling amount of students that are graduating.

25 They are trying to attract more, while, at the same 28

1 time, our state-related schools have gone to this

2 model of smaller satellite schools that didn’t

3 exist twenty years and are competing for the same

4 people.

5 Meanwhile, at the state level, four

6 hundred fifty million, is that about right for the

7 state system? And a hundred million more than

8 that, five hundred fifty million for state-related

9 schools. And they’re essentially fighting with

10 each other over the same students.

11 So, as secretary of Education and the

12 deputy secretary, have you actually had dialogue

13 with them about -- as to is there some way that we

14 can do this with funneling a billion dollars toward

15 these institutions to beat each other up for the

16 same dwindling amount of kids. So, I’m just

17 curious.

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: It is a conversation

19 we’ve had, and, specifically, working within the

20 state-related, the state system, and community

21 colleges.

22 I can share with you one of the positives

23 that happened as a result of the conversations are

24 that the secretary had engaged with in higher ed.

25 Under our administration, together, we created the 29

1 cross-articulation agreement, where community

2 college credits were recognized as, you know, as

3 a -- as a system of continuation into the four-year

4 institutions. Because what was happening at one

5 point in time, if you were leaving a community

6 college and going on to a four-year system and

7 graduating, you were counted as a drop-out for the

8 community college. So, there was no incentive for

9 a community college to create, you know, an

10 articulation pathway to one of the four-year

11 institutions.

12 Once we created that credit articulation

13 agreement and the community college and higher ed

14 were both recognized for that graduate, they

15 started working much more closely together.

16 Secondly, as we’ve been looking at, you

17 know, potential -- or encouraging potential

18 partnerships with satellite campuses and our state

19 system of higher ed, there’s one challenge that,

20 you know, has been created over -- you know, in the

21 past decade. And that was, when we started to

22 reduce, you know, the funding that went out to the

23 state system and state-related institutions, we

24 told them, You need to be -- You need to create a

25 better business or market model, you know, for your 30

1 institution. You need to -- you need to really

2 start to look differently and attract more students

3 if you want to bring down, you know, our tuition in

4 the state, because we can’t afford to -- you know,

5 to support this endeavor anymore.

6 And so what they started to do was, they

7 started to work to attract more out-of-state and

8 out-of-country students. They started to change

9 their business model to take on a much more broader

10 scope, you know, to generate additional revenue

11 because they knew they weren’t getting the revenue

12 from us.

13 So, now that, over the course of the past

14 two years that we’ve been making these investments,

15 we have been encouraging them to think and act

16 differently as institutions of higher ed.

17 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And I appreciate

18 that. But, at the same time, it seems like the

19 state-relateds are also -- well, you said that most

20 kids graduated school. I can’t remember the

21 percent.

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: 70 percent.

23 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: 70 percent goes to

24 state system schools.

25 And I’ve had -- my four daughters have -- 31

1 two have gone to state systems and one’s gone to a

2 state-related school, depending upon what their

3 majors were.

4 But now those lines seem to be blurred.

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah.

6 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And it seems like

7 we just keep throwing money, which is fine, I mean,

8 we’re all for funding education, but they’re

9 struggling. The state systems schools are

10 struggling because of lack of enrollment. I mean,

11 their enrollment’s down by 20 percent. And they’re

12 losing it to the state-related schools, which we’re

13 also funding.

14 And I’m just having trouble figuring out

15 how we fix this.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: And Wil can share a

17 couple of the specifics.

18 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: I’ll just say

19 briefly, Representative, that we’ve been working

20 with the state-relateds, the state system,

21 community colleges. And we’ve had two discussions

22 at the state-wide level here in Harrisburg around

23 how we align to our attainment challenge goal.

24 So, the state board of education adopted a

25 60 percent attainment challenge -- or attainment 32

1 goal by 2025. So, by 2025, you know, as the

2 secretary said, over 63 percent of the jobs require

3 some type of postsecondary credential. So, we’ve

4 been having conversations around how we align all

5 of the work that we’re doing in postsecondary ed to

6 make sure we get there. We’re currently around

7 44.7, 45 percent of Commonwealth residents have a

8 postsecondary credential that has value in the

9 workplace. And we need to be at 63 percent.

10 And so, we’ve been having these

11 conversations at the state-wide level. While the

12 number of high school students who are graduating

13 has decreased, the number of students who are going

14 into postsecondary has increased. So, in 2009,

15 around 57 percent of high school graduates in

16 Pennsylvania went on to postsecondary. Last year,

17 it was over -- just over 60 percent. And so, we

18 see the proportion of students actually increasing.

19 So, in real numbers, when we look at the

20 number of high school graduates, in 2009, it was

21 around a hundred thirty-nine thousand. Last year,

22 it was around a hundred nineteen thousand, but the

23 difference in students who actually went in to

24 postsecondary was eight thousand students. So, the

25 high school class is shrinking, but the number of 33

1 students going into postsecondary.

2 So, how do we align those services? So,

3 these are conversations we are engaging at the

4 state level to try and ensure that all publicly

5 supported institutions are pushing in the same

6 direction to make sure we can meet that 2025 goal

7 of 6 0 percent.

8 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.

9 And not only pushing in the same direction

10 but not beating the crap out of each other in the

11 process.

12 Thank you.

13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

14 Schweyer.

15 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Thank you,

16 Mr. Chairman.

17 Mr. Secretary, how you doing? Over here.

18 I would like to change topics just a

19 little bit, if I could, sir. We’ve discussed

20 higher education for most of this meeting. And

21 with a notable exception of, I believe it was, the

22 Plum Township Library, we haven’t talked about much

23 else. And I’d like to, if I could.

24 A couple things. A recent study in

25 downtown Allentown indicated that something like 80 34

1 percent of my poorest and most at risk residents in

2 my downtown region only have access to the Internet

3 through their mobile devices. And so, I know this

4 is not a new phenomenon. This is what we see in a

5 lot of our poorer communities. And their single

6 best point of access to the Internet, whether

7 they’re job seekers or just looking for basic

8 information and how to navigate all of our myriad

9 of services, is through our public libraries.

10 And, at the same time, we have a huge

11 number of new Americans in Allentown, as you have

12 discussed a number of times, where English may not

13 be their first language. So, they often will use

14 not our libraries but our adult literacy centers

15 more for English education, for literacy training

16 and those sorts of things.

17 By us not funding at the more robust level

18 our libraries and our adult literacy, I’m really

19 worried that we are underserving a very vulnerable

20 population of Pennsylvanians, certainly those in

21 Allentown.

22 So, I guess the very simple, open-ended

23 question for you, Mr. Secretary, is how can we do

24 this better, and what can we do better, given the

25 budgetary restraints that we are all facing? 35

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. I will

2 start us off and then I’m sure Glenn may have, you

3 know, some great additions to what I’m going to

4 share.

5 First, I want to thank you for bringing

6 libraries to light. Over the course of the past,

7 you know, ten years, I’ve been practically, now, in

8 central Pennsylvania, I’ve learned so much more

9 around the interworkings of libraries across the

10 Commonwealth.

11 First, you really raised or cited an

12 important stat. As we’re looking at the percentage

13 or the number of Pennsylvania residents who have

14 access, you know, to some form of connectivity has

15 increased, or we think it’s extremely high, but you

16 really — you raised an important distinction.

17 Many of those individuals have access through their

18 telephones or through -- you know, through Smart

19 phones or mobile phones, and it’s not the same.

20 It’s not the same as having access, you know, to a

21 much more robust technology. And libraries serve

22 to provide exactly that, not only in, you know, our

23 poorer urban communities, but, for some, it’s the

24 only place to connect or find connectivity in our

25 rural co mmunities. 36

1 And, you know, as a result, I had, over

2 the course of the past two years, although

3 recommending, you know, level funding this year,

4 the governor started to reinvest in our libraries,

5 and we started to think differently around how our

6 libraries look and really support the community.

7 Not only now are they -- you know, being the hub

8 for technology and to present and share resources,

9 but we’re starting to build labs such as

10 Makerspaces in our libraries. So, schools, local

11 institutions, and community members after school,

12 even during the day, are starting to connect to

13 really engage in STEM-related activities in our

14 public libraries.

15 You know, last year, you know, there were,

16 you know, over six hundred thousand students who

17 participated in reading programs in our public

18 libraries, and that number has continued to

19 increase over the course of the past two years.

20 So, we are, again, re-envisioning and

21 re-imagining libraries as the hubs of our community

22 and a place to continue to find, you know,

23 continued support and connecting support for some

24 of our most vulnerable citizens. And not only in

25 urban districts, as you shared, but it really has 37

1 become the backbone and meeting a specific need in

2 our rural communities.

3 Glenn, you want to say anything?

4 DEPUTY SECRETARY MILLER: Let me just add,

5 if I may, that you’re entirely correct, that

6 libraries are seeing that growth and there’s an

7 increasing reliance on libraries by vulnerable

8 populations, for sure.

9 We are confronted, of course, as the

10 secretary’s already mentioned, with a very

11 difficult economic condition and constraints on the

12 budget. We also know, from my experience, that the

13 governor is an avid reader and a strong supporter

14 of literacy and libraries, and so, we’re hoping

15 that, as the economy improves and as resources

16 improve, we’re going to be able to make those

17 improvements.

18 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Well, I

19 appreciate that. And I don’t want -- while I saw

20 the green light over there, I don’t want to ignore

21 the part about -- about adult education and adult

22 literacy centers. So, if you can just briefly

23 touch upon that before our time is up, gentlemen.

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: Sure. So, we’ve, of

25 course, continued to request and continue to invest 38

1 in some of our adult basic education programs and

2 our literacy centers to the tune of about 2.9 -- a

3 little over 2.9 million dollars. But we’re not

4 only stopping there. And as we -- as I work with

5 both of my colleagues to the right, we’ve also been

6 engaging other agencies to really expand what adult

7 basic literacy and adult literacy and adult

8 training programs look like in the Commonwealth.

9 You know, so, one, it’s not only making the

10 investments in the current systems that are

11 supporting our adult learners, but we’re also

12 looking at ways to connect -- to continue to

13 connect in a meaningful way with L and I and the

14 Department of Human Services to kind of coalesce

15 together to better serve those constituents.

16 So, one, resources, but, two, also

17 re-imagining and re-looking at how we’re providing.

18 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Great. Great.

19 Thank you so much.

20 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

22 Roae.

23 I also wanted to announce that we’ve been

24 joined by Representative Gillen.

25 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you, 39

1 Mr. Secretary, for being here to testify.

2 The new union contract between PASSHE and

3 APSCUF has, you know, two pay raises a year for the

4 professors. There’s the general pay increase and

5 the step increase. The union contract requires

6 professors to be in the classroom teaching twelve

7 hours a week to be considered full time. 7 percent

8 of professors can be on paid sabbatical leave at

9 any given time. Tuition is free for the children

10 and spouses of the professors. The union president

11 at each campus only has to teach nine hours a week

12 to be considered full time. Teachers -- or

13 professors that teach more than twelve hours a week

14 get paid overtime to do that. Department heads get

15 paid extra, even if it’s a one-person department.

16 My question is, did you vote for that new

17 union contract? And do you think that new union

18 contract will help keep tuition affordable at

19 PASSHE colleges?

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: We -- we did vote to

21 support that -- to support that union contract.

22 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Did you vote "yes"

23 on it, sir?

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: My designee voted "yes"

25 on it, with my agreement. Yes. 40

1 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. And do you

2 think those things I just said will help make

3 college more affordable at the state-owned

4 colleges?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: I think it’s -- there

6 are a number of issues you have to look at. One,

7 of course, is college affordability, as you just

8 shared. Secondly, we have to look at college

9 competitiveness in terms of the employees and the

10 faculty you were able to recruit and engage and

11 retain to continue providing instruction, high

12 quality instruction, to the students in their care.

13 You know, as I shared earlier, and I won’t

14 get into the real specifics again, but, systems of

15 higher ed have really been forced to take on a

16 business model and, you know, look to attract

17 students based on the alignment of the pathway they

18 provide.

19 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: I apologize, sir.

20 We have a quick time frame. I want to get through

21 some more questions.

22 Now, prior to the new union contract, the

23 PASSHE colleges were already in the top 15 percent

24 in the country in pay scale for the professors. Do

25 you feel it’s necessary -- or did you feel it was 41

1 necessary to have a new contract with two pay

2 raises a year to make it even higher than that?

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I’ll give you a

4 brief answer, since I know you have a number. 70

5 percent of our students who graduated from high

6 school go to the state system of higher education.

7 And I want to make sure that the 70 percent of the

8 students that go to the institutions have access to

9 the highest caliber and highest quality of

10 professors.

11 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: All right. My next

12 question, staffing at the department, according to

13 page two of the book that we got, in 2015, there

14 were three hundred eighty-three filled positions.

15 In 2016, three hundred eighty-nine filled

16 positions. And the chart here shows that it’s

17 going to be four hundred sixty-five for the new

18 fiscal year? Is that accurate? Or am I reading

19 the chart wrong?

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Bear with me. I’m

21 going to pull up the same chart you have, to make

22 sure we’re sharing the same stats.

23 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: And it shows that

24 the adjustments to the authorized staffing is

25 negative-ten, but the actual field staffing, if I’m 42

1 reading the chart right, it went from three

2 eighty-three to three eighty-nine, and in the new

3 budget it will be four sixty-five. Is that

4 accurate?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: The current number of

6 positions we have in GGO on my sheet is total -­

7 so, if you looked at specifically total is four

8 forty-six. However, state-funded positions is two

9 hundred and five.

10 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. That’s

11 different than the information that we have.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: You may be looking at

13 the total. You may be including our federal

14 complement which we have to employ to meet our

15 federal -­

16 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Well, the charts

17 that we have in our material, it shows the state

18 was one hundred and ninety-one in 2015, two hundred

19 in 2016, and budgeted for two hundred and

20 twenty-four.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. ’16-’17 budgeted

22 two thirty-four, ’17-’18 budgeted two twenty-four.

23 We had a complement ceiling freeze of vacancies,

24 and we currently had a number of positions that

25 were being processed at the time, which is what 43

1 brought us up to two thirty-four.

2 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: But it’s more than

3 it was in 2015. Like, if you go to the two

4 twenty-four, that’s more than the one ninety-one

5 you had in 2015. If I’m looking at the chart

6 right.

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, there were a

8 number -- so, when we had the 2015 complement

9 submitted, we had a number of positions that were

10 being -- that were being processed. So, I’ll give

11 you one example, our Office of School Improvement

12 has four positions in that office that were -- that

13 we’ve filled and are in the process of filling.

14 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: So, there’s

15 basically seventy-six more people than there were

16 in 2015, if I’m reading the chart right.

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: No.

18 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: No? I’ll have to

19 follow up with you, sir, to get more information on

20 the chart. Because the chart makes it look like it

21 would be four sixty-five. In 2015, it was only

22 three eighty-three.

23 Thank you, sir.

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you,

25 Representative. 44

1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We’ve been

2 joined by Representative Curtis Thomas as well.

3 And at this point I’ll recognize

4 Representative Bullock.

5 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 Good morning, Mr. Secretary. How are you

8 doing today?

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: Well. Thank you. Good

10 morning.

11 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Before I jump

12 into my questions, I just wanted to gently remind

13 my colleague that we receive a full salary, too,

14 and last I checked, we are not in session every

15 day. And I think that our professors may not teach

16 every day or nine hours a week or whatever it may

17 be, but they do a lot of work in the office or with

18 their students in meeting with them, and that is

19 all counted towards the time and commitment they

20 make to providing quality training to our

21 educators.

22 So, my questions, I wanted to talk about

23 the diverse array of options we have in our

24 institutions. We have over fourteen community

25 colleges, fourteen state-owned universities, four 45

1 state-related universities, eighty-eight private

2 college and universities, and a number of

3 theological seminaries and much, much more.

4 However, it’s my understanding that we

5 haven’t had an update to our higher education plan.

6 And this great network and treasure of higher

7 education options hasn’t really been looked at and

8 coordinated in a way. I believe the last time it

9 was updated may have been twenty years ago. It was

10 originally drafted back when we didn’t have a state

11 system. We didn’t have community colleges. And

12 so, therefore, it’s really outdated.

13 Can you tell me what, if any, plans there

14 are to update the plan? And what would that look

15 like?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

17 The master plans for basic -- for basic

18 education and higher education actually happen to

19 be one of the gifts we inherited, you know, as an

20 administration and in terms of updating. Other

21 than a portion of the master plan in 2015, the

22 large majority of both basic ed and higher ed

23 continue to be outdated.

24 Our team has actually just -- well, not

25 just -- over the course of this year, our team has 46

1 been working with the -- you know, with our State

2 Board of Education to start to engage in the

3 research to update the master plan. So, that work

4 has started now under this administration. So, we

5 would hope that over the course of the next couple

6 years, we will continue to have open dialogue.

7 We’ve done -- we’re doing a lot of the

8 research now around many of the components that

9 should be attached to the master plan, both from

10 basic ed and higher ed. And we continue to move

11 forward to consult the state board around the

12 specifics that should be included as part of that

13 master plan. And that’s work that we’ll be

14 engaging in over the course of this year.

15 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you for

16 sharing that.

17 And, lastly, my question is one in regard

18 of your own staff and personnel in regards to the

19 diversity of your staff.

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we’ve actually been

21 working, you know, increasingly hard, you know to

22 diversify the staff at the department. And, you

23 know, we’ve seen some -- some improvement, not

24 where we want it to be, but we absolutely have

25 diversified our staff and diversified, you know, 47

1 leadership and the members of our staff.

2 I also do want to share, because we

3 were -- we have this conversation often. And

4 whereas we’ve been looking, you know, by -- you

5 know, by increasing -- or by, you know, casting a

6 wider net in terms of our engagement, not only have

7 we been identifying and diversifying the staff in

8 the department, but, really, the conversation of

9 the footprint of the department is, you know -- has

10 also become much more diverse.

11 So, you know, I guess, to simply share it,

12 although there are a number of folks who don’t want

13 to necessarily come to Harrisburg and join, you

14 know, the staff of the Department of Education,

15 however, they have been making themselves available

16 to sit on work groups, to take leadership positions

17 locally to help inform our work. So, when we

18 share, like, the thousand of stakeholders we

19 engage, that is an extremely diverse work group,

20 both in, you know, racial, ethnic diversity, gender

21 diversity, socioeconomic diversity, and diversity

22 in experience.

23 So, our network is extremely diverse. We

24 just, every day, work with them to try to get them

25 to come to Harrisburg and join the department. 48

1 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I appreciate

2 that. And I think having all of those voices at

3 the table is important to have informed policy and

4 informed decisionmaking about the students that we

5 serve and in your staff as well.

6 So, if you don’t mind sharing separately

7 those numbers, either in writing after the hearing,

8 that would be -- that would be appreciated.

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: Will do.

10 And I have it here and ready -- took me a

11 minute to find it — but I’ll forward it to you.

12 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Great. Thank

13 you.

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

15 Greiner.

16 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thanks,

17 Mr. Chairman.

18 Good morning, Mr. Secretary.

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good morning.

20 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: As we’ve

21 discussed earlier, Pennsylvania has a great variety

22 of higher education institutions. We have quite a

23 few, the two-year community colleges, technical

24 schools. Of course, you know, we have four-year

25 public and private colleges and universities. 49

1 Given that diversity, what role does the

2 Department of Education play in making sure those

3 sectors work together in that we are using our

4 resources wisely -­

5 No. Let me just continue.

6 For example, last week, Thaddeus Stevens

7 College of Technology was here to testify, and

8 they’re always -- has been a great demand for their

9 graduates. And Commonwealth businesses have had -­

10 there’s many positions, technical positions that

11 need to be filled and aren’t being filled.

12 What can the department do to help ensure

13 that the state’s higher education institutions are

14 producing these type of workers that the state

15 needs? That’s one.

16 Then, two more questions following up.

17 Some states are actually trying to do performance

18 funding for higher education. That’s something I

19 know some of us have discussed. Would you be

20 supportive of something like that here in

21 Pennsylvania?

22 And then, finally the last question, of

23 course, this kind of ties it all in. You’re in

24 charge. If you could do anything you wanted to

25 change the way higher education works in 50

1 Pennsylvania, what would you recommend? What would

2 you do?

3 Thank you.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

5 So, first, I think what we are doing and

6 some of what I think we have some oversight to

7 provide as it relates to that higher education

8 alignment, first we can incentivize better behavior

9 between — in working between our K-12 system and

10 higher ed. That’s some of what we’re trying to do

11 now through the recommendation of the Future Ready

12 PA Index, which would absolutely take into account

13 our 339 plans, which are our college career

14 readiness plans submitted by schools, and encourage

15 and really push for schools and school districts to

16 submit those plans.

17 Secondly, when we have been looking

18 specifically at the recommendations made under

19 Senate Bill 880 for graduation requirements, we’re

20 looking to incentivize dual enrollment, career and

21 technical education certificate attainment as

22 graduation requirements, you know, as well as that

23 K-12 to higher ed alignment.

24 One of the challenges I think we face now

25 is, historically, our systems in K-12 and higher 51

1 education have been treated separately and in

2 silos. And then when you take all of our higher ed

3 institutions, they’ve been treated separately. So,

4 there’s -- we’ve never, as a system, incentivized

5 them working together to continue to create a

6 continuum of services.

7 One really good example I’ll share with

8 you. Our college acceptance criteria standards do

9 not align with graduation standards. So, one of

10 the conversations we’re having now is bringing

11 counselors and higher ed admissions counselors

12 together to say, hey, you know, what do you need -­

13 what must you graduate with in high school in order

14 to move on seamlessly into higher ed. That became

15 extremely important when we were looking at

16 computer science requirements. You know, currently

17 if you take a computer science class in lieu of

18 math and graduate, you may not get into one of the

19 higher education schools because there is no

20 alignment. So, we are doing that.

21 Secondly, you know, really taking a look

22 at the local business and industry needs, to

23 incentivize the programs that are being offered

24 through two-year, four-year, and

25 industry-credentialed programs. We’re starting to 52

1 move in that direction, but it’s difficult because

2 there are some institutions, both private and

3 public, that don’t want to let go of the current

4 program offerings.

5 And performance funding -- a little more

6 quickly, here -- but performance funding, it’s one

7 of the items that actually Dr. Barron, the

8 president of Penn State, shared as a potential, you

9 know, cost savings factor. And we haven’t gotten

10 into specifics, but it is -- our team and his team

11 will be considering and discussing those

12 opportunities moving forward.

13 You know, and, lastly, I think one of the

14 challenges with the department, the "anything I

15 want,” you know, with done, everything we do seems

16 to always have to be compartmentalized, so that the

17 history K-12 and, you know, and higher education.

18 It would be nice, in some of these instances, to

19 try to re-imagine, you know, kind of many of those

20 silos. If we could create more -- for example,

21 two-plus-two-plus-two models. So, two years of

22 high school, two years of gen ed, you know, college

23 and high school credits, and then two years of

24 specialization on an industry certificate or

25 two-year degree or four-year degree, you know, 53

1 that’s something that I’d love to continue to see

2 grow in the Commonwealth and better serve our kids.

3 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thank you,

4 Mr. Secretary.

5 I know it’s very complicated. And

6 Representative Dunbar made a comment, we seem like

7 we’re competing amongst our schools and we’re

8 trying our best to try to spend our dollars wisely.

9 So, I appreciate your time. Appreciate

10 your staff being here today.

11 Thank you.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

14 Daley.

15 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you,

16 Chairman.

17 Good morning, Secretary Rivera. Over

18 here.

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: Over in the corner.

20 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: So, I have two

21 questions. One is going to be on campus sexual

22 assault, and the other one, the administrative fee

23 for higher ed institutions. Not related, but I

24 think both interesting.

25 So, I know that last year the budget 54

1 included a million dollars for the It’s On Us

2 campaign to help combat sexual assault and

3 harassment on campuses and that the department

4 issued thirty-six grants to colleges and

5 universities around the Commonwealth. So, the

6 governor has requested another million dollars this

7 year for the program.

8 Could you give us an update on what

9 colleges and universities are doing with these

10 grants and if there are any initial promising

11 results?

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: I’m going to -- I’m

13 going to defer to my colleague who is actively

14 engaged in it.

15 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Sure. Okay. Thank

16 you.

17 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: There are a

18 variety of activities that colleges are currently

19 engaged in. There are, you know, for example,

20 green dots. There’s a lot of bystander

21 intervention, train the trainer-type models that

22 colleges engaged in.

23 We can provide a pretty detailed summary

24 of the thirty-six different models that colleges

25 are proposing. We currently don’t have any 55

1 results. Funding has started to go out in January,

2 and so we still don’t have results as they begin to

3 engage in this work. But we will be collecting

4 data from these institutions around if there are

5 any drops or increases in reporting, the number of

6 people who are trained. So, we do have a report

7 that will be going out to them when we collect it,

8 and we’re willing to provide that to the

9 representative.

10 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: When do you

11 anticipate the report would be available?

12 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: We expect to

13 collect that data, I believe, in June of this year.

14 So, we should be getting data in June.

15 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: And you’ll be

16 sharing that with the general assembly.

17 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Absolutely.

18 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: And one more

19 question on that. Thirty-six colleges and

20 universities -- was the application a competitive

21 application process?

22 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: It was a

23 competitive application. I believe we received

24 sixty-five applications for the million dollars,

25 and we awarded up to thirty thousand dollars per 56

1 campus.

2 We are going to also be hosting -- we’re

3 hoping to host here in Harrisburg a statewide

4 convening to talk about some of the best practices

5 and some of the early wins we’re seeing in this

6 work.

7 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: That’s great.

8 And were they all -- like public, private,

9 community -­

10 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Yes. Every

11 sector was funded.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Great.

13 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: So, public -­

14 all the publicly supported applied. We also

15 received -- a medical school applied as well. So,

16 we’ve funded graduate, undergraduate, two-year,

17 four-year, all along the continuum.

18 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: That’s great.

19 Thank you. I look forward to that report.

20 So, on the administrative fee for higher

21 ed institutions, the budget indicates the

22 department wants to institute an administrative fee

23 on higher ed that’s for services provided by PDE.

24 And it’s expected to bring in 290,000 dollars.

25 Can you tell us about what those services 57

1 are, who would be required to pay the fee, and what

2 you anticipate the fee -- how that would be

3 structured?

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: I can start us off, and

5 Wil can share some of the more specifics.

6 This year, in working with the general

7 assembly, the governor, and the Department of Ed

8 engaged or became part of what’s known as SARA with

9 higher ed institutions, which allows for broader

10 credit articulation agreements with institutions

11 across the country, which would help in attracting

12 both new students into our systems of higher ed,

13 you know, and allowing for a really truer

14 accounting of credits while also, at the same time,

15 providing anyone that wants to move on to other

16 institutions.

17 We are requesting an administrative fee to

18 process, you know, the SARA applications and the

19 SARA process. We didn’t want to, you know, engage

20 in a new process and then ask, you know, the

21 general assembly to fund that position. So, it’s

22 probably one of the bigger items of discussion.

23 The second biggest -- Wil, do you think

24 there’s anything else worth mentioning other than

25 the SARA applications? 58

1 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: I’d say,

2 quickly, we went from zero institutions to

3 sixty-five institutions. So, we’re the third -- in

4 terms of members in SARA, we are the third most

5 populous state with SARA members. We’re required

6 to do reporting, and we have no staffing to do that

7 reporting, and so the fees would pay for staffing.

8 After a year, we would look at the budget

9 again, since -- and then look at the regulation and

10 determine if the fee needs to be adjusted.

11 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Okay. And I’m not

12 sure that I’m hearing that -- was it SARA?

13 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Yeah. It

14 stands for statewide Authorization Reciprocity

15 Agreement.

16 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Okay. So, it’s a

17 national kind of thing that you joined and now -­

18 okay. Is there a write-up about that that you can

19 provide to us at some point?

20 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: It was

21 legislatively allowed for us to join.

22 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Oh, okay. Okay.

23 All right.

24 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: But we can

25 provide you that. 59

1 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Great. Thank you.

2 Thank you, Chairman.

3 Thank you, Secretary.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.

6 I’m going to ask Representative Curtis

7 Thomas, he would like to introduce some of the

8 students he brought with him today.

9 So, Representative Thomas, if you want to

10 recognize who you brought with you today.

11 Representative Thomas, if you don’t mind

12 taking a mic, just so that they can hear you.

13 Since -­

14 REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS: -- [inaudible] -­

15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: The individuals

16 who are watching on TV might want to hear you a

17 little bit better.

18 REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS: Can you hear,

19 Mr. Chairman?

20 Let me thank you. Thank you, Chairman

21 Markosek. And let me thank all of the members of

22 the committee, Education Committee -­

23 Appropriations Committee for this opportunity.

24 Some of you know that every year I have

25 two days at the Capitol, one at state capitol, one 60

1 at Washington, to expose young people to the

2 legislative process.

3 And I have some exciting young people with

4 me today sitting in on the committee. And we

5 have -- I know some of our members have had a

6 chance to attend St. Joe’s Prep, which borders

7 Representative Bullock’s and my district. So, we

8 have some students from St. Joe’s Prep. We have

9 some students from vocational -- Dobbins Vocational

10 Technical High School. And we have some young

11 people from High School of Engineering and Science,

12 which also borders Representative Bullock and my

13 district. And I believe we have someone from

14 Parkway Center City High School.

15 So, these are young people who are working

16 hard and want to fulfill their dreams. And I know

17 that, based on what we do or don’t do in the

18 Appropriations Committee, will ultimately impact

19 what they are doing.

20 So, I want to thank you.

21 And I want to thank them for taking the

22 time to be here today.

23 Thank you, Mr. Chair.

24 And I can’t forget one of our stellar

25 principals of Philadelphia, Dr. Toni Damon, who’s 61

1 the principal of vocational — Dobbins Vocational

2 Technical School.

3 Thank you.

4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you,

5 Representative Thomas.

6 With that, we will go to Representative

7 Knowles.

8 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 Mr. Secretary and members of the panel,

11 let me thank you for coming today to testify.

12 Over the past year, members of our caucus

13 have expressed a certain amount of frustration in

14 terms of getting responses and information from the

15 Department of Education. A few weeks ago, the

16 auditor general testified before this committee,

17 and I want to make sure that I get this right,

18 because it’s pretty strong stuff. His statement

19 was: You want to talk about a level of

20 frustration? Try dealing with the Pennsylvania

21 Department of Education. You want to bang your

22 head against a wall sometimes. It’s more -- it’s a

23 more fruitful endeavor.

24 Mr. Secretary, I would just ask, how would

25 you respond to that? Do you think that there needs 62

1 to be improvement in the terms of communicating

2 with other agencies?

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I wasn’t aware that

4 he made that comment. It’s — you know, it’s

5 interesting and, I guess, an unfortunate comment if

6 he’s speaking on behalf of the current Department

7 of Education as well as, you know, the current

8 administration.

9 As a matter of fact, I pride myself on

10 making myself personally available to any member of

11 the general assembly who has called our office or

12 requested a meeting, both either formal or

13 informal.

14 Secondly, the auditor general and I,

15 whenever he’s come -- whenever he’s called to the

16 Department of Education, I’ve scheduled personal

17 meetings with he as well. I was under the

18 impression that over the course of the past two

19 years he and I had a great relationship, because

20 we’d meet both formally and informally. The

21 members of my team meet formally and informally

22 with the members of his staff.

23 We, especially as it relates to education

24 specifically, we have formal and informal monthly

25 meetings with either member of the chairmen of the 63

1 Education Committee or a member of their staff of

2 the Education Committee. I would say that, you

3 know, probably one of my, you know, biggest areas

4 that I’m proud to announce is that we have been one

5 of -- you know, one of the most accessible and

6 engaging, you know, departments that I can

7 remember.

8 And not only here in Harrisburg. I mean,

9 I will make it a point to share with you in two

10 years, we’ve had, you know, almost fifty or sixty

11 listening sessions, where we’ve engaged thousands

12 of education stakeholders -- teachers, principals,

13 assistant principals, superintendents, advocates,

14 business and industry partners. You know, I mean,

15 we -- you know, we make ourselves as readily and

16 easily available as possible.

17 And if there’s a piece of information that

18 has not been shared, I can pretty much wager that

19 it hasn’t been asked for.

20 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Are you saying,

21 sir, that his -- the statement is unfounded and

22 that there is no room for improvement in terms of

23 your communication?

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: I learned a long time

25 ago, and I didn’t hear the statement with my own 64

1 ears, so I don’t have a context of that statement,

2 so I won’t respond to the statement specifically.

3 But I will share with you that he and I meet

4 individually. We’ve met formally and informally.

5 And any time his team calls mine, they sit down and

6 have a real concise and deliberate discussion.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Okay. Real

8 quickly, I have one more real quick question. I

9 watched an advertisement, a commercial on TV the

10 other night, and it was the promotion of the

11 state-owned system. And it was well done. And

12 they noted in that commercial that 80 percent of

13 the graduates from the state system remain in

14 Pennsylvania.

15 Now, based on the fact that you have that

16 number, I would ask, how many of our young people

17 that graduate from the state-owned universities are

18 able to get jobs in their field of study, in their

19 major?

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, that’s not a data

21 set specifically that we have been historically

22 able to collect. But it is something that we’re

23 working on moving forward. It’s one of the

24 governor’s, you know, metrics -- his metrics that

25 he’d like to include. 65

1 What we have started doing is identifying

2 once students graduate from high school and go on

3 to our systems of higher ed, which is why I was

4 able to share the 70 percent state system rate, but

5 that is something that we’re working on.

6 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you,

7 Mr. Secretary. I think it’s very important to have

8 that data, because I think that -- I mean, when

9 Thaddeus Stevens was here, they were able to tell

10 us that 96 percent of their kids go to work the

11 Monday after they graduate. And I think that

12 information is very important. And I commend you

13 for beginning to put that information together.

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: Actually that 96

15 percent number for Thaddeus Stevens, many of those

16 students don’t even graduate. They actually

17 start -- they show up for work before they even

18 graduate.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: That shows what a

20 good job they’re doing.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Prior to graduation.

22 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you very

23 much, sir.

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thaddeus will 66

1 appreciate that statement.

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: There’s a little plug

3 there, Chairman.

4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

5 Gainey.

6 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Good morning,

7 Mr. Secretary. How are you?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good morning.

9 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: My question is, I

10 think you’re absolutely correct when you talk about

11 from 2020 to 2025 the amount of jobs particularly

12 in this global economy that will need specific

13 technical skills.

14 And saying that, there always seems to be

15 a disconnect between the businesses community, our

16 higher learning institutions, and our public school

17 community.

18 I want to know, is there a way that we can

19 begin to bring them together? Because, as the

20 economy continues to evolve, particularly the

21 technology stand, we need to be lock and step with

22 the business communities so that we’re making sure,

23 particularly, towards CTEs, that we are designing

24 the right programs to be able to compete in this

25 global market. 67

1 So, I just wanted to hear your opinion.

2 Is there any conversation about the business

3 community, our higher learning institutions, and

4 our public schools getting together to talk about a

5 curriculum?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. One of the

7 projects we engaged in over the course of the past

8 year-plus, we wrote a grant early on and received a

9 planning grant for a New Skills for Youth grant,

10 which was NSFY. And through that grant, we were

11 able to work with the -- you know, with the PA

12 Foundation, with Team PA Foundation, industry

13 leaders, business leaders, education leaders,

14 members of the general assembly to do exactly that,

15 to start to have this really deep dialogue around

16 how to align business and industry needs with K-12

17 and higher education needs and expectations. Some

18 great work came out as a result of that.

19 As matter of fact, there’s a video you can

20 view on our website that was a link that took

21 business leaders and schools to align what course

22 offerings they have and how those course offerings

23 align to business, industry, and community needs.

24 So, all though we didn’t receive a phase

25 two portion of that grant, we are still continuing 68

1 with that work. So, our full expectation and

2 framework, which is why we have so much of the data

3 that we shared, was to make sure that what we’re

4 doing in our K-to-12 system, transitioning into

5 higher ed, industry, 2-year, 4-year degree is

6 specifically meeting the needs of local industry -­

7 business and industry.

8 So, we started with that grant. We were

9 able to build a really nice foundation in creating

10 a clearinghouse -- or, I’m sorry, a survey

11 inventory of what’s needed. Now, our next level of

12 work will be to align those 339 plans to that need.

13 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Do you know the

14 name of the video, just for the audience to maybe

15 watch it?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: I don’t remember the

17 name of the video. Someone will whisper it in my

18 ear, but if you look at -- I would probably say

19 career and college inventory is what the video

20 addresses.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: And you talked

22 about re-engaging people that didn’t finish college

23 but started, and you said it was 1.4 million -­

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: 1.4 million.

25 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: -- in the state of 69

1 Pennsylvania. What is the strategy to re-engage

2 them?

3 I think that’s a wonderful program

4 because, I think, particularly in urban areas such

5 as Pittsburgh, the number of people who didn’t

6 finish but have another opportunity now through

7 this to go back to college, not only do I think

8 that benefits them, but also I think it’s very big

9 for their children.

10 So, can you tell me little bit about the

11 strategy behind that and how that will be

12 implemented?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we wrote a grant

14 for Lumina in the hopes to create four college

15 re-engagement centers geographically dispersed

16 across the Commonwealth. Right now, even if we

17 don’t receive the grant, we’ve been trying to align

18 some of our thoughts and resources to at least

19 create two. But what we envision is having four

20 geographically dispersed college re-engagement

21 centers where we’ve identified many of those

22 individuals, where we can schedule time to meet

23 with them, you know, provide inventory around their

24 interests, what it is that they currently do, and

25 what opportunities exist across the Commonwealth, 70

1 and then align those individuals with certificate

2 attainment, two-year degree, or four-year degree

3 attainment.

4 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Is there any

5 information you could provide to us on that right

6 there?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. So, I know

8 we have a number of — you know, continued — Wil

9 and his team have a number of, you know, continued

10 meetings coming up to discuss it. We’ll make that

11 available you.

12 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Thank you.

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

15 Kampf.

16 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Mr. Secretary, over

17 here. That’s all right. And perhaps this is also

18 for Wil.

19 Just a couple of statistical questions.

20 The figure 70 percent has been talked about, 70

21 percent of our high school graduates who go on to

22 postsecondary education attend

23 Pennsylvania-supported schools. Does that mean

24 PASSHE, state-related, and community colleges?

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: And technical colleges. 71

1 Yes.

2 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And technical

3 colleges. So, that’s that -- right. Okay. So,

4 that’s what that means. Thank you.

5 And then, over all, of Pennsylvania high

6 school graduates, is enrollment in Pennsylvania

7 institutions of higher education flat? Is it

8 projected to go up?

9 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Well, we’re

10 hoping it goes up. As we look at — at the needs

11 of the Commonwealth, we think that in order to be

12 able to get to the 60 percent of our Pennsylvania

13 residents with some college or with a degree,

14 certificate, or credential, we’re going to have to

15 increase the number and the proportion of students

16 going on to postsecondary.

17 So, currently we’re at around 60, 61

18 percent. We think that, you know, when you look at

19 the states that are doing it most effectively -­

20 and not all of this is four year. We recognize

21 there’s, as the representative said earlier,

22 there’s a lot of alignment that needs to happen at

23 the two year. In fact, 33 percent of the jobs in

24 Pennsylvania by 2025 will require an associates

25 degree or less. And so, we do recognize that there 72

1 needs to be significant growth in that area as

2 well.

3 So, we’re seeing -- we’re seeing

4 students -- we’d like to see us probably be at

5 around 70 percent of high school graduating class

6 going on to some type of postsecondary.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. Right. Just

8 to drill into that, the -- you said that enrollment

9 is up essentially 60 percent, as opposed to 55 or

10 lower before. But in terms of raw numbers, right,

11 because we’ve heard that demographics, our

12 population is shrinking in this age area, age

13 group, is enrollment in Pennsylvania schools, that

14 is higher education schools, flat?

15 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: So, when you

16 look at the raw numbers, it’s probably down around

17 eight thousand from 2009. So -­

18 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And so, that’s

19 private and public institutions.

20 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: That’s

21 private and public. So, when we look at —

22 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: So, we’re down 8

23 percent since ’09.

24 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Eight

25 thousand students. 73

1 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Eight thousand.

2 Okay.

3 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Eight

4 thousand.

5 So, when we look at the number of

6 students, I think it’s 14.3 percent is what it is.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay.

8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

9 Donatucci.

10 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,

11 Secretary, for being here today.

12 I want to go back to the library

13 discussion. I’m an advocate of libraries. The one

14 in my neighborhood is now named after my

15 father-in-law. It’s been there since the early

16 1900s. I attended it all through my life. My kids

17 have gone there. They have wonderful programs that

18 I participate in, even today. I like to read to

19 children.

20 What does the library formula look like?

21 You spoke about incentivized good behavior in other

22 areas. Is there an opportunity to work on our

23 goals for libraries, even if we’re not talking

24 about new resources or funding?

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, Representative, 74

1 admittedly, the formula’s an old formula. We’ve

2 added a number of conversations around what it

3 would take to update the formula, given the current

4 role of libraries, current library standards,

5 expectations, and, of course, their role in the

6 community. And, first, it would be a significant

7 endeavor. You know, specifically, I’d share, it

8 would take, you know, significant resources, you

9 know, to update that formula, which has probably

10 been the biggest barrier to updating the formula.

11 So, I will admittedly share that it is an old -­

12 it’s an older, outdated formula that would take

13 significant resources to update, which is why many

14 administrations and renditions of the general

15 assembly have not updated that formula.

16 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Thank

17 you.

18 But I just want to give kudos to, like,

19 the friends of our library, because they do a lot

20 on their own to raise money to keep it going.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. And I

22 know, specifically, your library is one of those

23 that hosts a myriad of summer programs for kids and

24 brings families in. And we’re seeing amazing

25 things happen in our libraries across the 75

1 Commonwealth so they are a point of pride for us.

2 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Thank

3 you.

4 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative.

6 Boback.

7 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: I’m up here.

8 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

9 "Library" must be the word for the day

10 because that’s where I was wanting to key in. But

11 mine has to do with, several years ago, the

12 libraries launched the PA Forward initiative, and

13 that recognized the public is demanding greater

14 efficiency in program consolidation.

15 How do our libraries fit into that

16 concept?

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: So -- and I’ll let

18 Glenn share some of the specifics, but I have to

19 give a moment and really give kudos to both he and

20 his team. They have been working aggressively over

21 the course of the past two years to, one, not only

22 realize library efficiency but also redefine the

23 role of libraries in, you know, in our local

24 community.

25 So, two that I already shared, but I think 76

1 are worth re-mentioning. You know, first, being,

2 you know, that last mile, that connectivity for

3 some of our most vulnerable districts, especially

4 rural districts. Secondly, looking to provide

5 support around the Makerspaces and potential hacker

6 spaces, moving forward, so being, you know, that

7 center hub for technology.

8 I will make it a point to add one more,

9 and then he can share anything I’ve missed. But,

10 you know, Glenn himself and a representative from

11 the state library system have been working with

12 leadership and individuals from Labor and Industry

13 to see how we can help them with their vision of

14 providing, you know, adult training programs and,

15 you know, and job readiness programs as part of the

16 mission of the library as well. So, we’ve been

17 including them as a true partner in re-envisioning

18 how we support constituents across the

19 Commonwealth.

20 So, I don’t know if I missed anything.

21 DEPUTY SECRETARY MILLER: Just on PA

22 Forward, and, Representative, we know your strong

23 support for your local library as well. We met in

24 the past.

25 The Department of Education is actually a 77

1 full partner in the PA Forward initiative. So, we

2 work with the community -- the groups that are

3 working on all five aspects of those literacies

4 within PA Forward. Libraries can be a part of

5 that, specifically, by dedicating themselves to

6 become a STAR library program. And so, there are

7 various levels within that initiative. That

8 initiative focuses on five essential literacies:

9 basic literacy, health literacy, information

10 literacy -- and I’m going to forget them now. I

11 apologize. There are five essential literacies

12 that are part. And so, libraries can participate

13 in those programs.

14 And one of the goals here is to emphasize

15 the library’s role not just as a center of the

16 community, but as a partner in a public-private

17 setting. So, the initiative, what’s unique about

18 the initiative and why we’re so happy to be a part

19 of it is that this demonstrates the kind of

20 public-private partnership that really works well.

21 We have banks, and we have industries, Comcast

22 Cable, a number of partners involved in this, as

23 well as state agencies and state associations and

24 nonprofits.

25 So, the goal here is to try to bring 78

1 people together and to try to leverage the power of

2 those resources that are already there, rather than

3 meet in the silos that the secretary referenced

4 several times today, to try to get out in the

5 community and use the library assets in ways that

6 touch all elements in the community.

7 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Well, and with -­

8 pardon me -- with consolidation, I looked at the

9 adult and family literacy program. I recognized

10 that the community education council -- you know,

11 these are things that I feel fit perfectly as

12 partners with our libraries. Maybe they do now.

13 Maybe we should think about that type of

14 consolidation, because I saw the line item for the

15 council at 2.4 million.

16 And I also considered, with our libraries,

17 is there a way to do a match? We talked about

18 public-private partnerships. Is there a way that

19 if they raise so much money, that we could have a

20 match from somewhere?

21 I was just at a fundraiser Saturday night

22 up in Tunkhannock, as a matter of fact, for our

23 library. So, we’re always out there -- the past

24 president of the board of directors for the Back

25 Mountain Library. So, we’re always out there 79

1 begging and pinching for every penny that we could

2 get.

3 But is there a way that we could leverage

4 those dollars, either through a grant program — or

5 do we qualify for EITC in the libraries?

6 DEPUTY SECRETARY MILLER: We do. And it

7 depends on the library. And, of course, there are

8 a number of administrative hurdles to that, but

9 libraries are eligible partners in the EITC.

10 I’ll just briefly say, in terms of the

11 matching aspect of this, and Representative

12 Donatucci touched on this earlier, in the funding

13 formula, when it runs, there is an incentive

14 component that would speak specifically to what you

15 just described. Unfortunately, we don’t have the

16 dollars to run that.

17 So, whether we’re able to run the formula

18 eventually with sufficiently higher dollars, or

19 we’re able to run some modified formula that

20 incorporates that incentive aspect, we know that

21 those incentives are essential to long-term

22 stability at local libraries.

23 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: And, again, I just

24 don’t understand the level funding, knowing what

25 libraries do for our communities. When I see so 80

1 much money going to preK for our educators, I get

2 it. Wonderful. But a lot of the programs that

3 library do offer are story time, experiential -­

4 experiences for the children. So, I’m wondering,

5 too, with money being leveraged into something like

6 that, if they could show that they’re producing

7 with the preK kids. Just a thought.

8 But thank you for your time and for what

9 you do for us.

10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

12 Dean.

13 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you,

14 Mr. Chairman.

15 Good morning. Welcome.

16 I wonder if you could give us a little bit

17 of a primer on ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act. I

18 know your department and the state have lived under

19 No Child Left Behind. So, could you sort of

20 compare and contrast and tell us what states can

21 expect under the new act, what differences it will

22 make, what flexibilities it adds or does not add?

23 And, maybe, specifically, what do you hope it will

24 do in terms of specific achievement gaps that we

25 know exists among different demographics in our 81

1 state?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we took

3 advantage -- you all, of course, I probably feel I

4 have to preface everything I’m saying with the fact

5 that there’s still much uncertainty at the federal

6 level at this point in time, especially as it

7 relates to some aspects of ESSA and its

8 implementation.

9 However, we saw the adoption of ESSA as an

10 opportunity to look at four specific areas. First,

11 educator preparation, assessment, accountability,

12 and educator effectiveness.

13 And, you know, when we look at

14 specifically those four specific areas, we brought

15 together a good -- you know, a very large subgroup

16 to create -- to what we call work groups. So, we

17 brought educators together. We brought education

18 advocates. We brought individuals from elementary,

19 secondary, higher education, early childhood

20 education. We had some members of the staff in the

21 general assembly participate both on our whole

22 group discussion, and then we had geographic

23 listening and engagement sessions across the

24 Commonwealth. So, we really, you know, had a broad

25 stakeholder group engaged in this conversation. 82

1 So, you know, over a thousand folks, you know, came

2 together.

3 And I can give you a quick preview of some

4 of what they recommended to us as part of the -­

5 you know, as part of our report, which is actually

6 online for review by anyone who wants to see it.

7 First, I think, probably the one area -- and we’ll

8 probably get into this a little more in the K-to-12

9 section -- but assessment. You know, they agreed

10 with, you know, with the understanding and made the

11 statement that we are spending way too much time on

12 high-stakes tests or standardized tests for

13 students. And I won’t get into, you know, really

14 more of the specifics, because I’m sure I’ll share

15 it a number of times later this afternoon, but

16 there’s some recommendations that, you know, if we

17 realize them and we’re really digging deeper, you

18 know, to see if we can -- we can do this, to

19 decrease testing by practically 25 percent. So,

20 really decreasing the amount of time kids are

21 testing.

22 Second, teacher preparation programs. I

23 mean, we had conversations around what would it

24 look like to move away from the current system of

25 teacher -- you know, the teacher prep program to 83

1 moving into a more full-year apprenticeship

2 program. So, teachers will spend more time in the

3 classroom before they become credentialed, and

4 looking at the alignment between K-12 and higher ed

5 for teacher preparation.

6 We looked at accountability, the need to

7 be more wholistic around our accountability

8 measures, because, right now, we just kind of — we

9 take this sweeping, you know, approach to school

10 and district accountability as it relates, you

11 know, to standardized tests and thinking more

12 wholistically around it.

13 So, the — the adoption of ESSA gave us an

14 opportunity to focus on those four areas. But I do

15 think it’s important to mention that we started

16 this work, you know, under the direction of the

17 governor before ESSA was even adopted. It just

18 helped us provide a new framework that aligns to

19 our federal mandates.

20 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And am I right that

21 ESSA will not be fully implemented until the

22 upcoming fiscal year? And what uncertainties are

23 you concerned about? What are you hearing from the

24 federal government?

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, there’s always the 84

1 uncertainty around not only ESSA but just what

2 federal funding looks like, you know, for states

3 across the country.

4 You know, I think, what’s important for us

5 is, we’re going to -- we are going to formalize our

6 report, you know, and work with the general

7 assembly, and then present to the general assembly

8 what our findings are and what we’d like our plan

9 to be, you know, to -- you know, to the feds moving

10 forward.

11 But, ultimately, you know, we have a

12 really clear mandate by the education community and

13 the governor and what we’ve heard from the general

14 assembly. And we know that there are a number of

15 changes that have to take place in our educational

16 system, if we’re -- if our kids are going to be

17 successful. So, we’re going to move in that

18 direction regardless of what happens at the federal

19 level.

20 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.

21 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

23 Helm.

24 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you,

25 Mr. Chairman. 85

1 I’d like to talk about trade and technical

2 schools.

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: Um-hum.

4 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: I think we can all

5 agree that career and technical education is

6 important, and the Commonwealth needs more skilled

7 workers in the trades. However, there seems to be

8 a bias in many of our secondary schools towards

9 sending graduates to four-year colleges and

10 universities while trade and technical schools are

11 seen as a lesser path.

12 I recently had four students in my office.

13 They were in trade and technical schools. And

14 first of all, they walked in, and I was so

15 impressed with how they looked and how they dressed

16 and how they talked to me. But the one girl

17 specifically said, when she told her mother she

18 wanted to go on to a trade school, like she had

19 sort of disappointed her because she didn’t want to

20 pursue a four-year college degree. However, the

21 girl is in that trade school now, and she’s doing

22 so well, and her mother’s happy. The whole

23 family’s happy.

24 And then one of the young men was in a

25 school to learn to do websites, and he was telling 86

1 me, I’m making all this money already. I’m not

2 even out of school.

3 So, you know, that bring me back. Many

4 years ago, before this job, I sold real estate.

5 And I had this family. And as their children got

6 older, the first girl came to me to buy a house,

7 and she had some money, and she had good credit.

8 She was okay.

9 And then the second girl came to me and -­

10 you know, they’re both college graduates -- and she

11 didn’t have any money. She had bad credit. So, I

12 had to work with her for four years -- I mean, for

13 twelve months to get her into buying the house.

14 Then the boy comes, who went to a

15 technical school and became an electrician. And

16 I’m thinking, now, you know, how’s he going to buy

17 a house? Well, he had all sorts of money, had good

18 credit, you know, never had a problem.

19 So, that taught me a lesson, you know, how

20 important technical schools and trade schools are

21 in Pennsylvania.

22 But these students that were here in my

23 office, you know, four weeks ago, a couple weeks

24 ago, they talked about the bias that exists. And

25 they said, How can -- you know, how can I help 87

1 them? How can I help the system that people don’t

2 feel that way when other students want to go to a

3 school like this?

4 So, what can you do to change that -- the

5 way that people think of those schools? Because I

6 don’t think we should be doing that to our

7 students.

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: First, I think you made

9 a really important distinction, and that is, you

10 know, better educating the public, the community

11 around those biases.

12 First, here’s what we know academically.

13 So, career and technical education is no longer the

14 same programs we remember from fifty years ago.

15 You know, now, we kind of ran this study, and we

16 have this crosswalk, as our teacher prep, our

17 teacher resources online. In order to be an

18 electrician now, you have to navigate text, so,

19 your literacy skills have to be at a 900 Lexile.

20 So, just remember 900.

21 In order to engage with first- and

22 second-year collegiate text, so, you know, your

23 first two years of a two-year or four-year, you

24 know, traditional college experience, you have to

25 be able to navigate with text at 1100 Lexiles. 88

1 That window between how you have to read and engage

2 in math for, you know, for an electrician and many

3 of the technical certificates and two- and

4 four-year degrees is extremely narrow.

5 So, the days of that being not, you know,

6 as smart or, you know, an intelligent pathway, you

7 know, first, that’s a misnomer, misunderstanding;

8 that’s not true.

9 Secondly, you know, we have to understand

10 that there are multiple pathways to success, which

11 is why, you know, we’ve been engaging in what we’re

12 calling the Future Ready PA Index, which shows

13 value for the 339 plans, which are college and

14 career-readiness plans, elementary school career

15 days, middle school, college career inventory, high

16 school career pathways. And we’re also, in our

17 graduation standards, the recommendation that we’re

18 making is showing value to knock the NIMS, which

19 are career and technical education, you know,

20 program assessments, as well as dual enrollment,

21 advanced placement, international baccalaureate,

22 SAT programs. So, college pathways.

23 So, what -- you know, what we’ve done as

24 an administration, and the current Department of

25 Education sees multiple pathways, both as college 89

1 and career. And no one is better than the other.

2 I mean, if we’re going to succeed, we’re going to

3 ensure that students are successful in life and in

4 their communities. You know, we’re working —

5 we’re helping them attain a certificate to be an

6 electrician or go on to attain a two-year or

7 four-year degree.

8 But I think you raised an important

9 distinction, and it’s us continuing to share that

10 message so that a high school counselor or a mother

11 or a neighbor or a community member isn’t looking

12 down upon the electrician that probably could have,

13 you know, gave your 20 percent down payment out of

14 pocket, you know, or, you know, a student who may

15 not have, you know, aligned to the degree that gave

16 them gainful employment.

17 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: And I share with you

18 one young man. He was just about ready to take his

19 beautician’s license. So, I have five professional

20 licenses. So, somewhere along my life, I went to

21 beauty school. So, I pulled out my certificate. I

22 was a beautician. And he said, I can’t believe

23 this, that you’re a beautician. So, you can start

24 out with one thing and proceed to do many other

25 things in life. 90

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

2 And especially now, because they -- true, they’re

3 all transferable. Those skills are transferable.

4 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: So, please keep up

5 the good work to try and get rid of this bias,

6 because these students asked me to please ask you

7 that.

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. Thank you.

9 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you.

10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

11 Briggs.

12 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Thank you,

13 Mr. Chairman.

14 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

15 I just want to echo everyone’s comments

16 about their support for libraries. Since I first

17 got elected, library was always at the top of the

18 list. It was even one of the main reasons when I

19 voted against Governor Rendell’s budget, when he

20 was cutting it in 2010, I listed as one of the main

21 reasons for doing that.

22 But I wanted to take a second to talk a

23 little bit about early education and early

24 intervention, early childhood ed. It’s a highlight

25 in the budget that I think has not been talked 91

1 about since it is a little bit of a challenging

2 budget.

3 But can you talk a little bit about the

4 need to continue to invest in these early childhood

5 education fundings?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I know that’s one

7 of the topics we’ll probably get a little more in

8 depth, you know, later on in our discussion this

9 afternoon. But I can share with you, some of what

10 we’re already -- you know, we already know, as it

11 relates to the advancement and the alignment of

12 high quality early childhood education and we look

13 at the skills that business and industry leaders

14 are asking us that they want in graduates as, you

15 know -- you know, as well as or in addition to, you

16 know, technical ability and, you know, the

17 traditional reading, writing, you know, and

18 arithmetic. It’s, you know, employers in the

19 school system, you know, communities right now

20 need, you know, students that are engaging and, you

21 know, are successfully engaging through the soft

22 skills as well as, you know, the hard skills of

23 learning. And what we absolutely see now from, you

24 know, when you’re involved in early childhood -­

25 good quality early childhood education programs, 92

1 you know, students are coming to school ready,

2 prepared to learn.

3 Second, you’re engaging with society,

4 they’re engaging with, you know, the structured

5 environment, you know, much better than their peers

6 are. And, longitudinally, we see long-term, you

7 know, social -- social success of communities that

8 engage earlier on with early childhood programs.

9 So, you know, that data’s clear. And I

10 know we have our colleagues here today that, you

11 know, have been presenting letters from business

12 leaders, the military, you know, from, you know,

13 small business owners, you know, around the need to

14 support high quality early childhood. So, the data

15 supports this — you know, this investment.

16 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Well, you can’t go

17 wrong with the data.

18 The -- this afternoon’s going to be

19 interesting. I share your comment about

20 assessments are just way too much time for our

21 kids. And I want to ask you a little bit this

22 afternoon about our partnership with the

23 intermediate units. So, looking forward to a good

24 conversation.

25 Thank you. 93

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

3 Grove.

4 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you,

5 Mr. Chairman.

6 Mr. Secretary, good to see you again and

7 your entourage.

8 I want to follow up. Representative Roae

9 asked you a question about PHEAA and whether the -­

10 the approved contract makes higher education state.

11 Your response -- or, I’m sorry, PASSHE.

12 Thank you. Thank you, Representative

13 Roae.

14 70 percent of students are Pennsylvania

15 residents, and the administration wants to ensure

16 that those students have access to PASSHE moving

17 forward. That was kind of your response to his

18 question.

19 How does increasing the cost of PASSHE

20 increase access, as increased cost leads to higher

21 tuition, and higher tuition would be a barrier for

22 individuals enrolling in those institutions, moving

23 forward? Can you just clarify that a little bit

24 for me?

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: Sure. And I wanted 94

1 to -- that is -- that was my statement. I want to

2 clarify or I want to correct what I shared earlier.

3 70 percent of the Pennsylvania high school

4 graduates go on to state-related institutions.

5 So, I can’t say that my intent is to -­

6 you know, was to -- so, my intent was not to say

7 that increased cost, you know, supports students

8 moving on to those institutions. The quality

9 programs do support students participating and

10 enrolling in those institutions. And so, when

11 asked specifically did I support, you know, a

12 contract that provides, you know, for us to, you

13 know, to identify, recruit, retain, and engage high

14 quality staff members, that I do.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. So, that was

16 linking it to quality education from those

17 institutions.

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: Quality instructors in

19 those institutions.

20 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. Next

21 question. Can you answer what changed between the

22 budget documents you sent to the budget office in

23 October and the final budget that was presented to

24 the general assembly in February? What were the

25 funding differences between those two? 95

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: As specific to general

2 operations, GGO?

3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Just general -- so,

4 mobile science and math education was eliminated.

5 In your budget you sent to the administration, was

6 that a recommendation of the agency or did that

7 come from the budget office, to eliminate that line

8 item?

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, as we started

10 looking more deeply around the initial proposed

11 budget and then, you know, the subsequent budget,

12 one of the areas that we had to realize was that,

13 one, you know -- two really specific areas. One,

14 there was a three billion dollar, you know,

15 potential shortfall in the state’s budget.

16 Secondly, the governor is identifying or has

17 identified and continues to look to identify two

18 billion dollars in inefficiencies. So, when we

19 submitted, there were a number of increases and

20 decreases that were -- you know, that were -- that

21 were included, you know. So, it was a result of

22 just -- I have a list of them. I won’t take all of

23 our time. But we did adjust to meet the need of

24 that three billion and two-billion-dollar

25 96

1 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: And that, I mean -­

2 that -- so, people transportation,

3 fifty-million-dollar reduction. Was that your

4 agency’s request to the governor, or did the

5 governor put that in their budget?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, specific to people

7 transportation, we know we -- you know, we met with

8 the folks there at McKinsey, which was -- the

9 McKinsey Report was submitted. We worked with the

10 governor’s budget office to have probably a longer

11 range conversation -­

12 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: In short, that was

13 a -- that came from the budget request, not your

14 agency request.

15 SECRETARY RIVERA: You know what, it

16 wasn’t that simple. It was a group of us sitting

17 together to -- you know, to strategize. So, it was

18 more, you know, the result of conversation.

19 When we engage with -- when we engage with

20 the budget office as -- in terms of what we say -­

21 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: The general

22 question is, when you submitted your budget

23 documents to the budget office, was there a

24 fifty-million-dollar reduction in that line item

25 when you submitted it? 97

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, from our original

2 submission to our final submission, we were trying

3 to realize efficiencies. That was one of the areas

4 that we included. We don’t -- so, the Department

5 of Ed being a large agency, we don’t kind of submit

6 in a silo, in a vacuum. We work together across

7 agencies to -- you know, to realize what we have,

8 what our priorities are, and then ultimately what

9 we submit.

10 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. What program

11 measures did you determine to base those funding

12 reductions and increases on?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, first, you know, in

14 our original budget, of course, like most agencies,

15 we ask for more for everything, you know, until we

16 realize what the bottom-line budget looks like.

17 And then we still ask for more. But my team and I

18 engage in an exercise where we look at, you know,

19 specifically what -- you know, what’s -- what’s

20 priority, and then we just go line by line, and,

21 you know, try to realize when we stop at, you know,

22 what the balanced budget is, and then we move on

23 to, you know, kind of -- to ask for more specific

24 areas.

25 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. 98

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: This year, K-12 was one

2 of the most significant increases.

3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Your GGO has a

4 2.3-million-dollar increase. There’s a new

5 augmentation for PlanCon under that at 1.2 million

6 dollars. Is that from bond proceeds?

7 DIRECTOR MARIANO: Yes. For the ’17-’18

8 year, that would be from bond proceeds.

9 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: And what’s that

10 going to fund?

11 DIRECTOR MARIANO: That would be going to

12 fund staff, primarily.

13 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So -­

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: At that point,

15 I have to cut you off.

16 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you,

17 Mr. Chairman.

18 Representative Krueger-Braneky.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank

20 you, Mr. Secretary. I’ve appreciated all the wide

21 diversity of topics that you’re covering during

22 today’s hearing.

23 I want to talk a little bit about adult

24 literacy. There’s a wonderful agency in Delaware

25 County, in the Delaware County Literacy Council. 99

1 And I’ve gotten a chance to meet some of their

2 volunteers and some of their students. And they’re

3 serving folks who aren’t quite ready yet for a lot

4 of the higher education institutions that we’re

5 talking about today. Folks who either need help

6 with adult basic education, or need to earn a GED

7 before they can even go on to a community college

8 or a technical program, or who need help with

9 English as a second language.

10 And it’s a fairly small line item in the

11 budget, but feels crucial to helping to get

12 low-income folks on the pathway to the education

13 they need to have a good-paying job and a

14 family-staining wage.

15 So, can you talk a bit about the reduction

16 for this year? Now, I know Governor Wolf had

17 proposed increases in his first two budgets. There

18 was not an appetite in this legislature to fund

19 those. The decrease this year, though, where will

20 we see that?

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I don’t know

22 specifically where exactly we’re going to realize

23 those reductions. But I do know, as we’ve been

24 engaging -- and Wil can definitely share some of

25 the specifics in the program -- as we were engaging 100

1 in the budget, you know, much the narrative around

2 the difficulty in this year’s budget and many of

3 the difficult decisions we have had to make.

4 We’ve also been looking at, you know,

5 partnering with other agencies as well as visiting

6 sites that provide high quality GED instruction,

7 adult basic literacy instruction, and then

8 providing the differentiated pathways both through

9 GED and the highset program for, you know,

10 different types and -- for different types of

11 tests.

12 So, I think, you know, ultimately, what we

13 looked at was, the difficulty, of course, in the

14 budget. But we also continue to look to work with

15 other agencies across -- you know, different

16 governor’s agencies, to see if we can, you know,

17 capitalize off of partnerships and opportunities,

18 moving forward.

19 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: Through WIOA,

20 we’re required to form these one-stop shops

21 effectively across the Commonwealth. And so, we

22 are working with Labor and Industry to ensure that

23 we’re providing services that kind of cut across

24 all of the needs of our most vulnerable residents.

25 And so, we think, through partnerships 101

1 with Labor and Industry, through WIOA, we’ll be

2 able to provide either the same or higher level of

3 services to all residents of the Commonwealth.

4 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY:

5 Wonderful.

6 Then, I’ve got one more higher ed

7 question. I have two institutions of higher

8 education in my district, and one is Swarthmore

9 College. And back in December, in the face of the

10 increasing violence and hate toward people of color

11 and Muslims and the LGBT community and others, they

12 declared themselves a sanctuary campus. Just

13 shortly thereafter, there was a bill introduced,

14 HB14, around sanctuary campuses.

15 And based on my reading of the bill, it

16 would make higher -- institutions of higher

17 education that declare themselves sanctuary

18 campuses ineligible for state funding. And the

19 bill actually puts additional requirements on the

20 department for developing procedures for reporting

21 violations, maintaining records, and actually

22 reporting institutions of higher ed to the

23 secretary of the budget to have their funding

24 withheld.

25 So, my first question for you, if this 102

1 bill were to become law, what line items would be

2 impacted? I know that Swarthmore receives a small

3 amount of institutional assistance grants. Are

4 there other funding streams that would be impacted?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I’m looking

6 through, and I have to be honest and share that’s

7 not a specific conversation we’ve had yet, you

8 know, with our team, but, of course, you know, as

9 we look to, first, create barriers for students in

10 any, you know, system of education itself, you

11 know, it’s of concern to us.

12 But, ultimately, to answer your question

13 specifically, I don’t know what it could ultimately

14 cost the department or those schools, but it is

15 something we’d have to look deeply at and, you

16 know, hopefully not, you know, hurt, you know, a

17 system of higher ed that’s trying to -- trying to

18 provide service to the constituents in their

19 community. So, we’ll look a little more deeply at

20 that.

21 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: That was

22 going to be my second question. You know, given

23 the requirements in the bill, you know, of course

24 we’d have to pass a fiscal note out of

25 Appropriations to assign a cost to this, but 103

1 capacity for the department, if you were indeed

2 required to develop a whole new set of regulations

3 to enforce these regulations on campuses.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: And I will share, our

5 Department of Higher Education not only works on a

6 shoestring budget, but, you know, an extremely

7 small staff. So, any time we were -- you know, we

8 had to increase the number of personnel needed to,

9 you know, to provide oversight or for

10 documentation, it’s something that I particularly

11 frown upon. I’d much rather, you know,

12 transition -- I’d much rather push as much funding

13 as we can to the systems that are serving kids than

14 for us to have to provide, you know, really deep

15 oversight on areas that we probably should leave up

16 to them.

17 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank

18 you.

19 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

21 Delozier.

22 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you,

23 Mr. Chairman.

24 I’m over here. Keep switching sides on

25 you. 104

1 Most of the financial questions have been

2 asked. I had one of the line items that’s in your

3 budget that’s more on a safety issue. And that is

4 the new line, it was called, in the past, the

5 higher education assistance line, for a million

6 dollars. It’s now called the sexual assault

7 prevention line item. So, I have a few questions

8 on that as to the fact of, those grants that go out

9 on this line item and have in the past, are they

10 competitive grants for all schools, public and

11 private?

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes.

13 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And do

14 you know who received them? Could we get back from

15 you who received them this year?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes. I may even be

17 able to read it off to you, but -­

18 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Oh, okay.

19 And how much they were, how big are the grants?

20 It’s a million dollars, which obviously doesn’t go

21 too, too far, but how big were the grants typically

22 to those schools?

23 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: The grants

24 were up to the $30,000 maximum. So, they could

25 apply for up to the 30,000. 105

1 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: 30,000? Okay.

2 And do you receive back reporting on what

3 that money was used for and if it was successful

4 and what changes it made on campus?

5 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: We will be

6 receiving reports back from the institutions in

7 June of this year, which will be -- we’ll compile

8 them and put out an -- like a report, an annual

9 report, on the status of the grants.

10 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Okay.

11 Great. I will look forward to reading that.

12 And the -- does the -- as a whole, with

13 all of the higher education establishments in

14 Pennsylvania that we have, the ones that receive

15 our funding, do we keep stats on sexual assault on

16 the campus so we know what changes or positive

17 impact that these moneys may have?

18 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: There is

19 natural reporting around the Clery Act. And so, we

20 are working on actually developing a report card

21 that would provide some of that information to the

22 public. And so, we — we use Clery Act data.

23 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Okay.

24 DEPUTY SECRETARY DEL PILAR: There’s also

25 the Uniform Crime Reporting Act that all the 106

1 institutions report to the Pennsylvania Department

2 of Education. So, we’re compiling that.

3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So, we can bring

4 them all together so we know.

5 And then, there’s a lot of different

6 funding streams, obviously, other than this one

7 million dollars, that obviously we’re hoping will

8 have an impact on education and the ability to help

9 not only the victims but educate people on how

10 important this is and "no means no.”

11 Switching to a different subject real

12 quick is the issue of private loans for students.

13 I’ve had a few folks come in, unfortunately, that

14 have gone to private institutions, and they’ve been

15 driven to a private loan service to receive their

16 student loans. They have now, pretty much, been in

17 a bad situation where the interest rates have

18 accumulated, have accumulated, have accumulated,

19 and they’re kind of in a snowball. And, honestly,

20 there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

21 And they have come in. They’re living in

22 their parents’ basement. They can’t start a family

23 because they have -- and the school was the one

24 that drove them to those private loans. And

25 they’re not the PHEAA loans that we’re proud of and 107

1 the ones that help students and look for the

2 ability for them to pay over time.

3 And I -- I couldn’t help them, because it

4 was a private loan. It was not something that was

5 government backed.

6 What is it that the department is doing to

7 educate our seniors in high school, which may go

8 through K through 12, but when they make that leap?

9 A lot of them don’t know. A lot of them have never

10 taken a loan out. A lot of their parents don’t

11 know. They may be the first one going to college

12 in that family.

13 How do we educate and talk about what

14 positive loans we do have, like PHEAA, or other

15 ones that certainly can help the student and not

16 send them into poverty for the rest of their life?

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, there are going to

18 be two significant initiatives Wil and his team

19 engage in this year. First is a college counseling

20 awareness professional development series that’s

21 going to focus specifically on that, how to, you

22 know, provide students and families the information

23 needed to attain financial aid, to look at, you

24 know, the systems, what to be wary of, what to be

25 aware of, but also the process of navigating 108

1 industry for a two-year degree and four-year degree

2 accordingly.

3 Secondly, we are going to be engaging in,

4 I guess, a FAFSA completion days, which we will

5 be -- you know, it’s an organized effort to push

6 out the information, to inform parents,

7 communities, and students around the process of

8 filling out that financial aid paperwork. We

9 realize that one of the biggest indicators of

10 either not finishing or not filling out or not

11 knowing -- being aware of the, you know, the

12 opportunities that exist under PHEAA and FAFSA

13 itself is that personal connection, someone there

14 to help you guide through the process and the

15 system. And, as a result, many students do exactly

16 what you just shared. They come back after the

17 fact, and they say, "Hey, I heard about,” or "I

18 saw,” or "I read." And we want to prevent that

19 from happening by engaging with students and family

20

21 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: And I’m sorry.

22 Does that go with -- I know we work with the public

23 schools that we, you know, give -- and the private

24 colleges and that type of thing. But a lot of

25 times with some of these other institutions, 109

1 students go to get a two-year degree possibly,

2 thinking that they will get into a field and -­

3 field of study and get a good job, and that’s what

4 we want. And we’ve talked about the college debt.

5 The issue is still a matter of how much information

6 can you get to that private institution and that

7 student kind of going outside the normal

8 educational route, that is trying to better

9 themselves but can’t.

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we’re working with

11 private and public. And we’re working through

12 their systems to collectively bring them together.

13 So, I do have the list of thirty-six.

14 We’ll make it a point to get back to you.

15 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you. I

16 would like to see what schools got.

17 Thank you very much.

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay. We will

19 be adjourning after Chairman Roebuck’s questioning

20 till 1 o ’clock. He will be our last questioner

21 this morning. And then we will adjourn for

22 session.

23 Those who are on the list to ask

24 additional questions will stay on the list and

25 we’ll start up again this afternoon at 1:00. 110

1 Chairman Roebuck.

2 REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK: Thank you,

3 Mr. Chairman. I assume that, being the last

4 person, I get extra time. But I don’t know if

5 that’s a good assumption.

6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You assume

7 wrong.

8 REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK: Mr. Secretary,

9 the budget proposes a 2 percent increase in funding

10 for PASSHE schools, but there’s no increase for

11 other institutions of higher education, such as

12 community colleges. And community colleges

13 certainly now are the threshold point whereby many

14 students get into higher education.

15 I wonder if you might comment on that

16 priority.

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

18 Mr. Chairman -- and, you know, I won’t get

19 into -- share the specifics of what I shared, but I

20 did — you know, I do have to mention. This is a

21 difficult budget cycle. I mean, as we know, three

22 billion dollars and two billion in efficiencies.

23 And so, we were -- you know, as we look through and

24 we’re making recommendations, we weren’t able to

25 recommend, you know, increases for every 111

1 institution that we support and serve our students.

2 Now, I do want to take a moment and share

3 that although we didn’t -- we asked for flat

4 funding for those institutions, after having made

5 significant increases over the course of the past

6 two years together, there are a number of other

7 initiatives we’re hoping will incentivize both K-12

8 and higher education to work together to, you know,

9 generate revenue but also, as the same time, bring

10 down costs.

11 So, first, by looking at our graduation

12 standards in the Future Ready PA Index, we are

13 going to be incentivizing dual enrollment and those

14 college pathways, which then help get students into

15 school earlier and help schools engage students

16 earlier, which, you know, not only is a cost

17 savings for the families and for the schools

18 longitudinally but also helps schools partner with

19 their local K-12 system to generate some revenue.

20 Secondly, we are working with the

21 Department of Economic Development around some of

22 the job training grants that could have a positive

23 impact, if, you know, done strategically, which

24 we’re planning to do, would have a positive impact

25 for community colleges across the Commonwealth. 112

1 We also know the institutions themselves

2 have done amazing things. I mean, Penn State, you

3 know, through the early retirement incentive,

4 having almost three hundred, you know, faculty take

5 advantage of that, to bring down, you know, their

6 cost savings.

7 So, we’re helping, you know, wherever and

8 whenever we can, you know, to support those

9 endeavors.

10 So, difficult budget cycle. We always

11 wish we could do more, especially in education for

12 every one of our amazing stakeholders, but what we

13 have to do now is try to support them in ways to

14 find other ways to mitigate costs while, at the

15 same time, bringing in, you know, revenue wherever

16 they can.

17 REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK: Okay. My second

18 question is, the budget eliminates a

19 thirty-million-dollar appropriation for University

20 of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, which is an

21 institution in my legislative district. And, in

22 fact, is the only veterinarian school in the state.

23 It’s my understanding that most of that

24 thirty million, if not all of it, goes to

25 Pennsylvania students in order to give them access 113

1 to a veterinary education.

2 I wonder -- again, I know there are

3 priorities. I wonder if you might comment on

4 eliminating funding for what is the only option, in

5 reality, for students who want to stay in

6 Pennsylvania and go to a veterinary school.

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, this is one of the

8 recommendations that came out as a result of the

9 conversation around the McKinsey Report. And they

10 identified a number of, you know, areas to

11 consider.

12 First, nationally, it was the largest

13 state-supported, you know, public — private

14 institution grant, you know, in the country.

15 You know, secondly, it was identified that

16 the endowment, you know, for the University of

17 Penn -- and I always share this lightly, because I

18 at one point have to finish up my graduate studies

19 there and someone will put a target on my back -­

20 but, you know, they have a 10.7-billion-dollar, you

21 know, endowment, and, you know, two hundred

22 fourteen million dollars in financial aid per year.

23 So, not an easy decision. I mean, I have to go on

24 the record to share that.

25 But given the consideration and -- you 114

1 know, and the fact that it was the largest, you

2 know, publicly supported line item to a private

3 institution in the country, and, secondly, that,

4 you know, there is an endowment in place, you know,

5 we are hoping that it’s not going to have a

6 negative impact on the students being served.

7 REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK: Okay. Thank you,

8 Secretary.

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Chairman, you

11 finished early. Wow. You have a minute to go.

12 Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you. We

13 will reconvene at 1 o ’clock.

14 Deputy Secretary Pilar and Deputy

15 Secretary Miller, if you can’t make it back this

16 afternoon, we understand. And that’s the way we

17 had scheduled the hearing. So, that’s not a

18 problem. If there is any additional questions for

19 either of you gentlemen, we can make sure we get

20 them to you in writing.

21 And I’m going to thank you.

22 Again, we’ll reconvene at 1 o ’clock.

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you, sir.

24 ~k ~k ~k

25 (Whereupon, the lunch break was taken.) 115

1 ~k ~k ~k

2 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR. Good afternoon,

3 everyone. That’s what happens sometimes when you

4 adjourn. Not everybody makes it back. We managed

5 to lose the chairman somewhere along the line. But

6 instead of having everybody sit around and wait, we

7 will continue, and we’ll continue in higher

8 education.

9 And the first questions will be from

10 Representative Milne.

11 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Good afternoon,

12 Mr. Secretary. Welcome back.

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good afternoon.

14 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: I think, in

15 recognition of spring training starting, I’m going

16 to do a doubleheader thing here. I’m going to ask

17 a higher education question and then segue into

18 primary and secondary education.

19 So, just to close up the loop on the

20 higher education, my question relates to

21 educational opportunities and services for veterans

22 and service members who attend one of our

23 Pennsylvania universities. And as I’m sure you’re

24 certainly familiar with, Pennsylvania has the

25 distinction of having one of the highest 116

1 percentages of citizens who do serve in the

2 military, and we contribute mightily to state and

3 national defense efforts. That obviously entails

4 an obligation to make sure that when Johnny and

5 Jane come marching home, they are taken care of, in

6 many ways, heath care, otherwise certainly

7 education, chance to get their life and their

8 career moving.

9 So, maybe you could speak to your

10 perspective about what you’re observing and seeing

11 on our Pennsylvania campuses to make that

12 demographic feel welcomed and to give them

13 opportunities.

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, absolutely. And

15 that is a great question.

16 First, we see, transactionally, also

17 through support on campuses, a real focus on

18 supporting our veterans, especially those that are

19 returning, both with supports on campus and also

20 navigating getting into campuses -- or on to

21 campuses, I should say.

22 I’m also really proud, two specific areas

23 that we’ve invested in the Department of Education.

24 First, veterans preference for veterans and their

25 families around teacher certifications. So, not 117

1 only extremely decreased, you know, fees associated

2 with attaining those certificates, but also an

3 expedited process towards working on teaching

4 credentials for both veterans and the immediate

5 members of their family.

6 Secondly, we just wrote a grant, which I

7 think we have a really good chance of attaining,

8 Troops for Teachers grant, which we can provide

9 opportunities for veterans coming and interested in

10 entering the world of education to work on their

11 teaching credentials, moving forward. So, it’s not

12 something that we’ve just -- you know, we show, you

13 know, respect to those who have served our country

14 in terms of process, but we actively engage in

15 trying to find ways to make life easier for them

16 when they return as it relates to teaching and

17 learning, but also now looking to find ways to fund

18 opportunities for our veterans.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you. It’s

20 very encouraging to hear. And I appreciate your

21 honoring their service in that manner.

22 Secondly, related to primary and secondary

23 education, there is a line item for tuition for

24 orphans and children placed in private homes. In

25 the governor’s proposed 2017-2018 budget, the 118

1 amount is forty-eight billion dollars requested.

2 Your budget materials certainly explained

3 well how that money is to be used, what it’s to be

4 used for, and how it is to be divided up. I’m just

5 trying to get a sense, then, of how many children

6 does that dollars aid and assist?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. I don’t have the

8 specific number in front of us, but many of the

9 students who participate in these programs are

10 students with very specific needs, if we’re

11 discussing the specific programs. So, much of

12 it -- if it’s the programs that are aligned to

13 specific learning and social, emotional

14 disabilities, much of that is run by the percentage

15 of the cost to educate those children. So, I can

16 absolutely get you the number of kids, but that is

17 one of those line items where we -- where we invest

18 state dollars to provide programmatic needs to some

19 of our neediest learners.

20 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Certainly. And

21 just a question in relation to eligibility for that

22 program. Are you aware of whether any foster

23 children have had their public school tuition paid

24 for schools outside of their home district through

25 that program? 119

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: I don’t think so. I

2 think -- there’s an "above and beyond” accounting

3 that’s into place, and it’s formula driven. So,

4 I think, you know, the home district covers up to a

5 point, and then the Commonwealth, you know, we, you

6 know, cover the difference if it’s -- if it’s a

7 program that’s not fully covered.

8 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you very

9 much.

10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you, sir.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.

13 Next up will be Representative Kim.

14 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Yes. Good afternoon,

15 Secretary.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good afternoon.

17 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Very disappointed

18 with the flat funding for our fourteen community

19 colleges. I’m a big fan of my local community

20 college, Harrisburg Area Community College, because

21 it expands the opportunities for my low-income

22 families.

23 Oregon and Tennessee are the first states

24 to provide free community college tuitions. In San

25 Francisco, they approved a transfer tax that would 120

1 raise 5.4 million dollars so that every qualified

2 resident can get a free community college tuition.

3 Secretary, we need to do something

4 different. Our workforce is desperate for skilled

5 workers. We are not giving it to them at the speed

6 that they would like. Do you think this is a

7 direction we should be going?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: I understand the

9 concern. And, you know, as -- you know, as I

10 shared, especially when we’re looking at support of

11 our -- at our community colleges, you know, as I

12 shared earlier, and I just have to share because

13 it’s -- only because I get it. I mean, this is a

14 difficult budget cycle, as we’ve been looking at,

15 you know, projected three billion dollars. And,

16 you know, we would like to support all of our

17 institutions of higher education.

18 Now, what we will do, moving forward,

19 although we’ve requested the flat funding on top of

20 the significant funding made available to community

21 colleges over the course of the past two years, we

22 will continue to work with our partners in the

23 community colleges. And Harrisburg Area Community

24 College has been, you know, a significant partner

25 with us and, you know, for us, in the department. 121

1 And we’ll continue to work with them to realize,

2 you know, efficiencies and revenue generation as

3 well as exposing kids through -- to college through

4 dorm rooms and opportunities.

5 You know, we’re going to work very closely

6 with the department of DCED to try to see how we

7 can, you know, utilize those grants together to

8 help support community colleges. You know, we

9 continue to work with them through the credit

10 articulation model, to help improve and align their

11 programs to much needed, you know, adult programs,

12 as well as traditional student programs.

13 So, you know, albeit, you know,

14 understanding the concern around the flat funding,

15 but we’re going to look all around that funding as

16 well to help them, you know, secure grants, find

17 efficiencies, and align programs to meet their

18 needs.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Thank you for that.

20 And my second question and last question

21 is that I’ve learned some concerning statistics

22 that colleges spend millions of dollars on remedial

23 classes so that their freshman students can

24 actually take college courses in college, or that

25 only about 25 percent of high school graduates can 122

1 pass a basic entrance exam for the military.

2 So, with that said, I was very pleased to

3 hear that you announced the Future Ready PA Index

4 initiative. Could tell me how that would help

5 prepare our students for the next level?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. Two

7 significant initiatives introduced, you know, by

8 us, under the direction of the governor, will work

9 to address that preK-through-12/higher ed

10 alignment.

11 First, as you mentioned, the Future Ready

12 PA Index is going to move away from this sweeping

13 cookie-cutter approach to how we, you know,

14 determine school success, which is currently 60 to

15 90 percent aligned to standardized test, to looking

16 at factors that matter. First, achievement

17 factors, by using, you know, the current

18 assessments, but also looking at growth year to

19 year.

20 Next, we want to take a look at what we

21 call on-tract indicators. So, these are the

22 indicators that research shows decrease drop-out

23 rates and ensures success moving into higher ed:

24 third-grade reading level attainment, seventh-grade

25 math level attainment, looking at attendance. 123

1 Because, right now, that is not currently, you

2 know, measured or submitted at the state level.

3 However, those are probably better indicators to

4 ensure future success in your K-to-12 system and

5 higher ed in the workforce.

6 Not only are we looking at those two

7 factors, but we’re identifying what we’re calling

8 college and career readiness factors as well. So,

9 access to high quality programs, dual enrollment,

10 AP, International Baccalaureate programs, career

11 and technical education programs, as well as

12 meeting the needs of English-language learners, as

13 well as special needs students.

14 So, we’re trying to look much more

15 wholistically around how we measure school success,

16 because the current model, you know, is telling us

17 whether or not you’re proficient, but it really is

18 not explaining why or if you’re on track to

19 success.

20 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Thank you for that

21 initiative. I really appreciate that.

22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

24 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.

25 Wanted to let it be known that we’ve been 124

1 joined by Representative Marsico.

2 And our next question will come from

3 Representative Quinn.

4 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you, Mr. Vice

5 Chair.

6 And thank you, Mr. Secretary and your

7 team, for being here today.

8 I’m looking at the material that you

9 provided. And thank you. It’s very comprehensive.

10 As of December 31st, 2016, your complement

11 was three hundred and eighty-nine people large.

12 Okay? And we’re budgeted this coming year for four

13 hundred and sixty-five people. The difference

14 there, that’s seventy-six more people. Where do

15 you anticipate them filling, what positions within

16 your department? Do they concentrate in a certain

17 area?

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, when we’re looking

19 specifically at our complement for the upcoming

20 year, two hundred and twenty-four of those

21 positions are state positions, and two hundred

22 forty-one are our complement positions which

23 our federal programs, which -- you know,

24 at the state level. The increase in the two

25 twenty-four are specifically -- are specifically 125

1 aligned to some of the newer initiatives where

2 we’ll be managing both school improvement, looking

3 at our Office of School Improvement as it relates

4 to academic as well as fiscal accountability and

5 support, and also looking at some of the alignment

6 for charter school office, which will support

7 charter schools and cyber charter schools, which

8 are positions that have historically been -- or at

9 least in recent history went unfilled.

10 So, we kind of always assume a number -­

11 you know, a number of those vacancies, you know.

12 Some we’re able to fill and some we don’t.

13 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: What confuses me,

14 though, is a couple pages later, on the GGO

15 operation, the continuation, it talks about that

16 2017-’18 year includes a decrease of one million

17 five hundred forty-three thousand dollars as an

18 initiative to implement complement savings. So,

19 I’m seeing an increase in numbers but a decrease in

20 projections for dollars. And it’s not adding up to

21 me.

22 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Hi, there. Thank

23 you, Representative.

24 So, if I could just point out, on the

25 table, part of what you’re looking at is the 126

1 federal complement. And so, if you’ll notice, in

2 the past several years, although -- for example, in

3 2015, our authorized federal complement was two

4 thirty-seven, we only filled one ninety-two.

5 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Right.

6 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: For this year, was

7 authorized at two forty-one, but we’ve only filled

8 a hundred eighty-nine.

9 Looking forward, we’re still authorizing

10 at two hundred forty-one federal positions, but we

11 have an issue with maintenance of effort.

12 Maintenance of effort means that the feds require

13 us, if we’re going to fill federal positions, that

14 we have to have matching state positions. And so,

15 if we’ve seen any decrease in our state positions,

16 we’re not going to be able to -- to fill those

17 positions because we won’t satisfy our maintenance

18 of effort.

19 So, the savings come from the reduction of

20 the two thirty-four to the two twenty-four in the

21 GGO-funded positions.

22 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Okay. But, for the

23 past two years, then, you’ve demonstrated to

24 yourself that the job could be done with either a

25 ninety-two or a hundred eighty-nine. What happens 127

1 to those dollars that you had ready to match the

2 federal funds but weren’t spent? Where else do

3 they -- where are they realized? I would think

4 that they would show in less dollars the year going

5 forward, as opposed to more.

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we’re going to have

7 Danielle clarify the numbers.

8 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Okay.

9 DIRECTOR MARIANO: I just wanted to

10 clarify, too, that when we’re talking about

11 authorized versus filled, that’s an important

12 distinction. So, if you look at for the December

13 31st, 2016, number, it’s filled two hundred,

14 authorized two thirty-four. For the budgeted, it’s

15 authorized two twenty-four and filled two

16 twenty-four. So, our authorized complement did go

17 down. So, the savings that -- the number that you

18 were referring to earlier in savings.

19 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: 1.5.

20 DIRECTOR MARIANO: Yes. That is from

21 vacancy savings. If you’ll see, it’s a

22 negative-ten in the adjustments to authorized. So,

23 that’s ten vacancies that were removed from our

24 complement.

25 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Excuse me. But if 128

1 you were able to operate in the two prior years

2 without filling them, and I’m not being told right

3 now specifically where the need is in the

4 complement, why the extra dollars? I mean, it’s

5 not like you have a hold harmless in these lines

6 that you have to hold up.

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Understood. I didn’t

8 answer your question earlier. I’m sorry.

9 So, where we look at the vacancies

10 identified, they are the same vacancies. So, we

11 have -- you know, there are a few reoccurring

12 vacancies that exist year to year; however, it’s -­

13 the number of vacancies are fluid. So, what our

14 team, you know, has been doing is they’ve been

15 looking at the identified vacancies, restructuring

16 the positions or restructuring departments, and

17 filling based on need in the department.

18 So, the ten vacancies we reduced this year

19 may not have been the same vacancies that the

20 department had last year. So, each and every

21 vacancy comes in for a justification complement to

22 my office through the department heads, and then we

23 identify which of those positions we’re going to

24 fill moving forward.

25 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I ’m sure it’s more 129

1 complicated than my brain’s taking, but it seems to

2 me if I had a couple of years of a history of not

3 needing -- of not needing 10 percent of my

4 positions filled, that I would just be dropping

5 them.

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: I think -- understood

7 exactly what you’re asking.

8 I think the best way to explain it -- and

9 it is hard to — to wrap your head around. I

10 didn’t fully understand it until I saw it myself.

11 So, every month we identify a number of

12 vacancies -- every few months we identify a number

13 of vacancies. They aren’t the same vacancies. We

14 fill, you know, up until whatever the complement

15 number is, and then some may resign, go to a school

16 district, retire, and so that vacancy number,

17 whereas it may remain static or within a few

18 vacancies of each other, but they’re not the same

19 vacancies. So, we can’t say, well, we did with ten

20 vacancies in these specific areas last year, when

21 the ten vacancies we’re representing today aren’t

22 the same -- are not the same ten vacancies we had

23 last year.

24 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Is a family leave

25 considered a vacancy? 130

1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: That’s -­

2 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: That’s a "yes" or

3 "no."

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: No. No.

5 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you.

6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

7 Dean.

8 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 Good afternoon.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good afternoon.

12 I want to start by saying I’m appreciative

13 that this budget proposal includes a million

14 dollars for basic education funding, that it

15 includes 11.7 million dollars for early

16 intervention. And I think I want to just examine

17 briefly the bigger picture of basic ed and then ask

18 some specific questions about early intervention.

19 And I always go back to the history of

20 education funding in Pennsylvania in my lifetime.

21 When I was in high school -- and this gives me

22 away -- back in the ’70s, education funding by the

23 state was at about 50 percent and the local level

24 at about 50 percent. And we know that that has,

25 over the last forty years, declined, so that the 131

1 state’s share has gone down to about 36 percent,

2 and, therefore, we wind up with an overreliance on

3 the local share and overreliance on property taxes.

4 And that would be okay, perhaps, if our

5 performance was adequate. But, a recent Washington

6 Post article reveals something we've seen over and

7 over again, that Pennsylvania has the most

8 inequitable spending per pupil in the United

9 States. And it's not close. It's 33 percent more

10 inequitable, lower per pupil of poor districts

11 versus wealthy districts. 33 percent. The next

12 closest state in this sad distinction is Vermont at

13 about 18 percent. So, that's a grave bottom figure

14 for us to be in.

15 We' re also forty-sixth in state spending

16 for education. Coincidentally, or maybe not, we're

17 about forty-sixth in job growth. I think they're

18 connected.

19 So, as I say, I'm pleased that the

20 governor is putting more money to basic education,

21 as he did in the last budget. We're seeing

22 hundreds of millions of dollars.

23 But is there a longer term plan to really

24 dig out?

25 I appreciate that you and other 132

1 secretaries come to us and say, It’s a difficult

2 budget season. It’s a difficult budget season of

3 our making in some measure. If we had the will to

4 find the resources to educate our kids at the level

5 that we ought to be doing it, then we would not be

6 in this difficult budget season that you’re talking

7 about.

8 So, is there a longer term plan to dig

9 out, is my first question. And I have a quick

10 question on early intervention, please.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

12 First, I want to mention, Representative,

13 you’re absolutely correct. When we look at the

14 lowest per pupil school district in the

15 Commonwealth is a little over ten thousand dollars

16 per pupil, whereas the highest spent per pupil

17 school district in the Commonwealth is a little

18 above twenty-five thousand dollars per child, per

19 student, which shows that disparity between how

20 much we’re spending per child across the

21 Commonwealth.

22 I think the first positive step in terms

23 of the investments we’re making in education for

24 children is the basic education funding formula,

25 which takes into account the poverty index, also 133

1 the number of English-language learners, as well as

2 local tax effort. So, providing equity, you know,

3 as well as predictability through the basic

4 education funding formula is an important first

5 step.

6 But the funding formula only allocates new

7 funding to education. And that’s why the

8 conversation we are having today is so important.

9 So, this hundred million dollars on top

10 of, you know, the historic four hundred and

11 fifty-two million dollars invested by the governor

12 and members of this general assembly is an

13 important first step, but equitable distribution of

14 those dollars is going to continue to be extremely

15 important.

16 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: I appreciate that.

17 And that -- it is good -- a healthy beginning.

18 To shift to early intervention, it’s a

19 very important program, of course, in my Montgomery

20 County. And early intervention, you know, the

21 range of services is dramatic. It can be from some

22 early speech, language things to very, very

23 serious, multi-layered interventions to help

24 students before they get to kindergarten succeed.

25 I’m pleased to see, and I know my local 134

1 intermediate unit is pleased to see, an

2 11.7-million-dollar increase. What is that based

3 on? And, s peci fi cal l y, what I would like to know

4 is, do we have an examination of the need so that

5 we know exactly how much we need to fund?

6 So, maybe you can tell a little bit about

7 early intervention.

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. And I’ll

9 let my colleague share a little more of the

10 specifics, but I remember our conversation from

11 last year about early intervention, so it

12 absolutely resonated with me.

13 So, first, the 11.7-million-dollar

14 increase is about a 5 percent increase in early

15 intervention, but not only are we recommending the

16 increase for some of our most vulnerable learners,

17 you know, we currently have a work group meeting

18 together to discuss the identification of not only

19 the services but the funding for those positions.

20 So, we’re really looking at the process, as well as

21 just making, you know, investments in those areas.

22 And we want to make sure that we have a good system

23 to allocate resources and funding for both birth to

24 three and then three, you know, to

25 kindergarten-aged students. 135

1 I don’t know. Does anyone want to share

2 anything specific to that?

3 DEPUTY SECRETARY MORRIS: Yes. Thank you.

4 Thank you for that question. As we are

5 making this historic investment in preschool early

6 intervention, we’re also working with our grantees

7 and our providers at the ground level to pilot

8 future funding strategies so that we can determine

9 the exact amount of need in our communities.

10 We know, as you pointed out, that we have

11 children that are being identified with multiple

12 delays. And that list is growing. So, we’re

13 looking to meet that head on. And we continue to

14 work with our IUs, as wells our MAWAs to

15 understand, again, that exact need.

16 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And it’s such a

17 smart investment, because we do know that once you

18 help children in those early years —

19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative,

20 I have to kind of cut you off.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: On a happy note.

22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

24 Keller.

25 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you, 136

1 Mr. Chairman.

2 And good afternoon, Mr. Secretary.

3 I just want to take note that page eleven

4 of your testimony contains your plan for investing

5 in Pennsylvania’s teachers and school leaders. So,

6 that would lead me to believe that we both agree

7 that classroom instruction and the human factor of

8 our education system is an integral part and

9 necessary part of our budget; correct? Their

10 salaries and benefits.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes.

12 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Now, the

13 question I’m going to have, the governor’s Budget

14 in Brief also contains information about schools

15 that teach. And I would imagine that, on the

16 education part, you had input in this document.

17 Yes or no?

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Then, maybe

20 you can explain why or -- just let me ask if -­

21 this is a "yes" or "no" question -- your request

22 for the ’17-’18 budget request in line items for

23 just preK through 12 is about 11.8 billion dollars,

24 yet the graph for ’17-’18 in the governor’s

25 information here shows that it’s about -- a little 137

1 over nine billion. Am I correct in assuming that

2 the graph doesn’t include the pension and Social

3 Security costs for the teachers and the school

4 employees?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: I don’t have that

6 graph, nor the specific detail in front of me.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: But you did help

8 put this together. If I add the pension costs back

9 on -- and the Social Security costs back onto this

10 graph, it comes out almost identical to this.

11 So, I guess I’m wondering, why, in this

12 graph, and if I do it for the previous years, you

13 see the same pattern. So, I’m not seeing that —

14 this graph is sort of deceptive, because we’ve just

15 agreed, right, that the teachers and the school

16 employees are an important part of our education.

17 They’re necessary. Yet we’re not including in this

18 graph of historical funding those items.

19 So, if you’re not sure of that and could

20 get us the answer, I would appreciate if that’s the

21 missing piece to the puzzle.

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: I will absolutely take

23 a look at the specific numbers and forward those

24 over to you.

25 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Because the 138

1 other problem I have with this is, when you look at

2 the ’10-’11 and ’09-’10 years, I would assume that

3 that includes the federal stimulus money in this

4 graph. Is that correct?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: I believe we backed out

6 the federal stimulus dollars.

7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Mr. Secretary,

8 you did not.

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: We did not?

10 Well, we’ll verify, sir, to ensure I’m

11 giving you accurate data.

12 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. But my

13 question is, and if we didn’t, I want to know why

14 we didn’t at least note on the graph that it

15 contains those dollars.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: I will answer that -­

17 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Because that is

18 very deceptive, quite frankly.

19 But, again, I think the omission of the -­

20 from what I’m seeing, the pension costs and Social

21 Security costs in this graph is, you know -­

22 because we’re contributing much more to pensions

23 now than we were in ’9-’10 and ’10-’11.

24 So, anyhow, I guess my point is, we all

25 realize that they should be included in there, 139

1 because that is part of having those people in our

2 school systems. And pensions shouldn’t be taken

3 out of the -- just "yes" or "no," do you believe

4 pension costs should be taken out of our education

5 budget, like I think has happened? I mean, will we

6 agree they should be included in there?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Oh, no. I think when

8 we’re specifically looking at the recommendations

9 that the governor’s making for increases in basic

10 education, it’s the funding that’s going into

11 classrooms -­

12 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Teachers are in

13 the classrooms.

14 I’m going to end it there, because I’ve

15 got more questions. I’ve got to keep going.

16 But teachers are in the classrooms. We’ve

17 agreed they’re important. And their pension

18 costs -- I mean, nobody else pulls out their

19 employee costs when they figure their cost model

20 for their business, nobody does in private

21 industry.

22 Questions -- I want to go back to

23 Representative Roae’s questioning earlier on the

24 PASSHE contract. You had mentioned that we’re

25 looking for the brightest and the best professors 140

1 for our system -- higher system of education. And

2 that’s why you voted on the contract. Correct?

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: I said we want to

4 create conditions that attract the brightest and

5 the best professors to education our children in

6 the -­

7 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. And that’s

8 why — okay. So, I guess the question I have, we

9 have a measurement for our professors to make sure

10 we have the best and brightest there, we keep them

11 there?

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Each one of our systems

13 has a -- has a system of evaluation and a system of

14 hiring -­

15 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: -- that ensures they’re

17 picking their specific individuals -­

18 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. So, you

19 supported the contract. Does the contract contain

20 a -- because higher ed is different than

21 K-through-12. Higher ed tenure is a collective

22 bargaining thing.

23 Does this contract contain collective

24 bargaining for the PASSHE system? Or is collective

25 bargaining agreement, does that contain tenure in 141

1 it?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: I would say all

3 collective bargaining agreements have general

4 working conditions that are agreed upon by the

5 system and the collective bargaining unit.

6 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yes or no, does

7 it -- yes, does it mention tenure in the contract?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: I don't have the

9 contract in front of me. I brought my budget book.

10 I didn't bring my contract book.

11 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. But the

12 point is -- and I just read an article on NFL, and

13 they cut players if they don't perform. And I just

14 can't understand, for the life of me, why a sport

15 can make sure they attract the best and the

16 brightest and keep them on their team, when if

17 we're allowing tenure in that contract, and you

18 said we want the best conditions for the best

19 people, so, that's -- I just can't believe that

20 we're putting more emphasis on sports than we are

21 on education.

22 Would the contract allow, if you have two

23 professors that are identical as far as years of

24 service -­

25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: 142

1 Representative -­

2 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: If got -- if their

3 years of service, and one’s having better results,

4 can he get a higher raise than the one that’s not?

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative,

6 I have to cut you off.

7 Representative Daley.

8 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thanks,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 Secretary, very good to see you this

11 afternoon.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

13 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Long day.

14 So, my understanding is that over 70

15 percent of the pension costs in your budget

16 actually go back to pay back debt. And that’s

17 okay, because the normal costs of what -- the cost

18 of the pensions for the current employees is

19 included in the costs for educating our children.

20 I mean, it’s not like you’re eliminating all of the

21 pension costs, just the part to pay back the

22 unfunded liability?

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: The increase that’s

24 associated for school district in the state of

25 the — you have the pension. Most of it goes to 143

1 fund the old debt, unfunded liability.

2 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Old debt, right.

3 Okay. Thank you.

4 So, I also wanted to ask you about special

5 education programs, because in nine of the past ten

6 years, the United States DOE’s Office of Special Ed

7 has certified Pennsylvania’s programs as "meets

8 requirements,” which is the highest distinction.

9 Can you -- that’s a really good track

10 record, nine out of ten years.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Can you talk about

13 how Pennsylvania accomplishes this?

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

15 We have one of the, you know, the highest

16 or most recognized special education teams in the

17 country. And we’re extremely proud, you know, of

18 the work they’ve accomplished. Nine out of ten,

19 you know, years is quite a feat and accomplishment.

20 So, first, I think it’s really, you know,

21 a compliment to the individuals that are running

22 that department. And they are seasoned, you know,

23 well -- you know, well-skilled individuals. And

24 not only do they provide the technical assistance

25 that’s needed day to day to run good quality 144

1 programs, but these are individuals that aren’t

2 afraid to go visit schools and enter classrooms and

3 engage with families and students.

4 And I think, first and foremost, what

5 makes them effective at their job is that they know

6 education and they know families. And as a result

7 of that and the respect they command in doing such,

8 when they make recommendations around the

9 improvement to the field, whether it’s operational

10 recommendations, or compliance recommendations, you

11 know, and probably most importantly and most often,

12 you know, educational, you know, recommendations,

13 they’re respected and listened to. And I think, as

14 a result of their relationship with the field of

15 special education, we continue to exceed the

16 national standard for service.

17 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you,

18 Secretary.

19 [Comment not on microphone.]

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: You’re still green from

21 my table.

22 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Still green.

23 Okay. So, this is probably not a short

24 question, but you can probably -- the question is,

25 the relationship between spending and student 145

1 learning, my understanding is that research

2 suggests that spending matters, but other factor

3 also contribute. And two of those factors are

4 student poverty and parental education. Can you

5 just speak briefly about them, because I believe

6 they’re both -- or at least poverty is factored

7 into our basic ed funding formula. Can you just

8 talk about that also?

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

10 Poverty is one of the greatest indicators,

11 you know, when looking at the success of a district

12 or a community in general.

13 And I think not only are we looking to

14 provide additional support through the basic

15 education funding formula, but the department has

16 looked at a number of strategies to engage in

17 addressing that issue. One of our biggest

18 strategies this year, which we’re really proud of,

19 and we’re starting to see some real movement in the

20 community schools strategy, because we understand

21 that if students are -- you know, students deal and

22 family deals with social, emotional needs every day

23 in our schools. So, by partnering with other

24 agencies, such as the Department of Human Service

25 or the Department of Agriculture, we’re working to 146

1 bring much needed social, emotional resources into

2 schools and school districts as well. We want to

3 ensure that students can, you know, have, you know,

4 vision care. They’re being fed appropriately. You

5 know, they’re -- you know, if they have mental or

6 physical health needs, we’re able to work with

7 partners to -- you know, to engage in that support.

8 So, not only are we looking at equitable

9 resources of funding to these school districts, but

10 we’re looking at strategies that would best support

11 the needs of the whole child. And you’re going to

12 be hearing a lot more of that as we move forward

13 into this year through the governor’s proposals.

14 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Good. Thank you.

15 Thank you very much.

16 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

18 Jamie Santora.

19 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman.

21 Mr. Secretary, a couple of questions.

22 One, charter schools. In the past two budgets, the

23 governor had initiatives regarding charter school

24 and charter school reform. I did not see anything

25 similar in this budget. 147

1 Does he still have that agenda? And where

2 are on you it? And what types of reforms -- if so,

3 what would they be?

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

5 First, you know, there’s always a question

6 as to where do, you know -- where does the

7 Department of Education stand with charter schools.

8 First, you know, I’ll put out there, you know, very

9 succinctly and directly, charter schools are public

10 schools. And, you know, they’re recognized and -­

11 you know, as public schools. So, we have to work

12 on a number, you know, of opportunities as they

13 relate to charter schools.

14 First, in terms of charter school

15 accountability. Charter school laws are outdated

16 and they absolutely -- there’s an opportunity

17 there, you know, to look at some specific areas,

18 such as special education funding as it relates to

19 charter schools. Traditional public schools follow

20 the recommendation of the new special education

21 funding formula. Charter schools do not.

22 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: So, on that,

23 charter schools get, I believe, an average of what

24 the school district spends on their students. In

25 that average, are they including the kids that we 148

1 spend eighty thousand-plus on to put in these

2 special schools? Or is that a separate tier? But

3 do they also have those students in their charter

4 schools?

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, here's the

6 interesting aspect of the special education funding

7 formula. So, all special education costs are

8 included as part of, you know, the special

9 education funding formula. The denominator is

10 always up -- you know, is capped at 16 percent,

11 because that's the state average. So, if a

12 charter -- so, if a traditional public school has

13 an 18, 19, 20 percent special education population

14 and it drives that -- you know, that numerator

15 higher because they're serving a larger number of

16 special education students, you're still dividing

17 that top number by that 16 percent, which then

18 drives the total per student, you know, funding

19 number higher.

20 So, I think -- that's one of the easier

21 areas that we can start to engage in. And,

22 actually, it's one of the areas, as we -- as we

23 have discussions with, you know, really well-run

24 charter schools, they'd love to see that addressed,

25 because they're kind of being painted with a broad 149

1 brush in terms of the mismanagement. And those are

2 schools that -- charter schools that are doing a

3 good job.

4 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: Thank you.

5 Going into the shale tax that the governor

6 proposed, I see nowhere where it’s all dedicated to

7 education. It’s been talked about the last three

8 years, since 2014, when the governor was running.

9 That would fund a lot of the gaps that one

10 of my colleagues from, I believe it was, Bucks

11 County spoke about earlier. I saw that, in his

12 projections, seven hundred million’s coming in

13 2021. Had that all gone to the education, we would

14 -- and running it through the new formula, we’d see

15 a lot of good opportunities there.

16 Do you agree with that? Did you have a

17 conversation when you saw this shale tax come out

18 and it wasn’t dedicated to education?

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: Selfishly, I think all

20 funding should come to education in the

21 Commonwealth.

22 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: We’re not all the

23 way there, but -­

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I always advocate

25 to that end. Right? 150

1 You know, and then, at the end of the day,

2 there are, you know, a number of other agencies

3 that have needs, and, you know, advocate as

4 aggressively as I do to serve our constituents.

5 But it continues to be one of those areas, you

6 know, that I advocate on behalf of -­

7 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: Well, keep

8 advocating for that one. If it’s going to happen,

9 it should go to education. Otherwise, I just don’t

10 see a need for it.

11 But putting that aside, the tax credit

12 program, EITC, OSTC, I think I’ve said it in

13 multiple hearings, I believe it benefits both

14 public and nonpublic schools, more nonpublic in the

15 scholarship side of things, and, yes, there is some

16 funding that’s through EIOs and things that can go

17 to the public schools. But more so, in some of our

18 most populated districts, it’s keeping the class

19 sizes down.

20 I talked about blocks in Philadelphia,

21 average scholarship, eighteen hundred dollars. If

22 a hundred million dollars gets cut out of the tax

23 credit program, and a big chunk of that comes from

24 the EITC, and those families cannot afford to send

25 their kids to a nonpublic school, our public 151

1 schools are going to be impacted.

2 Have you thought about that and how you’re

3 going to be able to come up with the funding to be

4 able to provide for those additional families that

5 are going to have to attend public school because

6 they can no longer afford the nonpublic school?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah, not specifically

8 to the impact of the funding. I understand that

9 that’s a conversation that the general assembly and

10 governor continue to have.

11 For us, what we’ve been looking

12 specifically at is how to make sure that, when

13 allocated -- when agreed upon and allocated, we get

14 that funding out to schools, you know, as quickly

15 and efficiently as possible.

16 So, we stay ready to facilitate the

17 transaction of those dollars as, you know, the

18 governor sees fit.

19 REPRESENTATIVE SANTORA: I’m done, but you

20 should keep that in mind for the future with your

21 planning, because if it gets cut, it’s going to be

22 a real problem for our public schools, especially

23 our larger populated schools in poorer areas.

24 Thank you.

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you. 152

1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

2 Kinsey.

3 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you,

4 Mr. Chairman.

5 Mr. Secretary, I’ m going to ask you to

6 just bear with me for a second. I thought I heard

7 you say some things a little bit earlier and I need

8 to go back and make sure I’m clear on that.

9 I think in your conversation with Rep.

10 Daley, did I hear you say that over 70 percent of

11 pension costs pay for pension debt and is not

12 reflected in today’s classroom? Is that correct?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I always say the

14 vast majority, because whenever I start to share

15 the specific percentages, depending on how you’re

16 looking at it -­

17 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure.

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: -- you know, it can be

19 argued.

20 But I will, again, say two important facts

21 on the pension system. One, the vast majority of

22 the pension contribution goes to fund old debt.

23 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Old debt.

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: And the second, you

25 know, really important distinction is that the 153

1 average PSERS annuitant makes twenty-seven thousand

2 dollars a year, you know, which is always something

3 that’s surprising when I share, you know, because

4 there’s always this assumption that the average

5 annuitant in the PSERS -- in our -- you know, in

6 the education pension system makes a hundred

7 thousand dollars a year. And the average annuitant

8 makes a little over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. Thank you

10 for sharing that.

11 Also, earlier, in talking with some of

12 Rep. Dean’s questioning, I thought I heard you say

13 that, here in Pennsylvania, the high that we pay

14 per pupil is twenty-five thousand. What was the

15 low, again, for that?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: A little over ten

17 thousand.

18 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: A little over ten

19 thousand.

20 So, the average — I’m not a

21 mathematician -- so the average that we pay per

22 pupil is roughly -­

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah, I think -- of

24 course, the averages are -- you know, fluctuate

25 because of the number of school districts -- 154

1 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure. Sure.

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: -- but I’d say it’s

3 about fourteen -- when we looked at it at one

4 point, it was a little over -- between thirteen and

5 fifteen, but I want to get those numbers out to you

6 to make sure they’re accurate.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. I

8 appreciate that.

9 And the reason I’ m asking these questions,

10 Mr. Secretary, is because I was looking at some

11 other data, and it -- and the numbers might be off

12 a little bit -- but it’s that we pay an average of

13 forty-three thousand dollars for individuals who

14 are incarcerated. And so, when I look at what

15 we’re paying for individuals who are incarcerated

16 versus what we’re willing to spend on educating

17 children, you know, it’s a great disparity, from my

18 vantage point, which is very concerning for me as

19 well.

20 Let me ask this. I hear this quite often.

21 I’ve heard folks -- educators -- say that they use

22 third-grade tests to sort of predict individuals

23 who may not be successful and, therefore, might end

24 up incarcerated. Is that -- have you heard

25 something similar to that? Or is that just a myth? 155

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: No, absolutely. When

2 you look at the recommendation we're making for the

3 Future Ready PA Index, it's looking at third-grade

4 level as one of the indicators, because research

5 shows that reading on grade level by third and

6 fourth grade is a better indicator -- is a great

7 indicator, better indicator for high school

8 graduation, which is an exact indicator around in

9 terms of some of our incarceration rates.

10 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: It's also a better

12 indicator as to whether or not you're going to be

13 successful in postsecondary or not.

14 So, you know, and the reason being is you

15 learn to read by third grade, and third grade and

16 above, you read to learn. So, if you've never

17 learned to read, you're never going to understand

18 the content that comes after that point.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: I appreciate you

20 sharing that.

21 And as I'm sitting here, I'm just taking

22 this all in. You know, what we're spending for

23 folks incarcerated, what we're willing to invest -­

24 and I applaud the governor for looking to put more

25 money into early education, because it makes sense, 156

1 based on, you know, what’s taking place out there

2 and how we spend taxpayer dollars. So, I do

3 appreciate you sharing all that.

4 I want to jump real quick for a quick

5 second. Again, I represent Philadelphia County.

6 Not long ago, there was an incident where a boiler

7 blew up in one of the schools not far from my

8 district. Unfortunately, a gentleman passed away,

9 died from that incident.

10 And more recently, I had an opportunity,

11 members of the Philadelphia delegation had an

12 opportunity to meet with the superintendent of the

13 Philadelphia School District, where he rolled out a

14 plan for their facilities. And I think he -- for

15 all the facilities within the school district, he

16 talked about maybe spending five billion dollars

17 just to bring them up to a particular standard.

18 I guess, what I’m asking you to do is, if

19 you can sort of tie in -- I mean, there’s some

20 concern we have in regards to safety within our

21 school district facilities. You know, some of them

22 are pretty old. But how does that work? You know,

23 local municipalities or local school districts, how

24 do they interface with the state in regards to just

25 trying to bring some of these facilities up to 157

1 code? Or standard. I’m sorry.

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. It’s a great

3 question. And probably a really good opportunity

4 to highlight the work of the PlanCon commission.

5 And, you know, both of the chairmen here today and

6 a number of other elected officials, we sit

7 together on a commission where we’re visiting

8 school districts to discuss exactly that, the

9 future of our PlanCon reimbursement. So, that’s

10 the process by which we reimburse schools for

11 school construction.

12 And, you know, so we’re -- you know, we’re

13 in the process now of discussing the future of that

14 process, and as to -- and as to whether or not

15 we’re going to continue to provide those

16 reimbursements.

17 Specific to Philadelphia, we visited and

18 did a great tour of Overbrook High School, you

19 know, to see what -- you know, just where the needs

20 in terms of construction, maintenance, and, you

21 know, facilities are there. And, you know, the

22 discussion around boilers and the upkeep of boilers

23 came up. The discussion around lead in water, you

24 know, came up. You know, the discussion around

25 day-to-day facility needs and support was -- you 158

1 know, was a really deep conversation. And, I

2 think, you know — one, I’m hopeful that, you know,

3 we will be able to work through this, because the

4 conversation is robust and is supported, you know,

5 in a bipartisan, bicameral manner and also by the

6 governor.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Mr. Secretary, I

8 see the chairman -­

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: Right.

10 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: So, Mr. Chairman,

11 I want to thank you for the latitude.

12 And, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your

13 answer. And I’ll follow up with you as well off

14 record.

15 Thank you very much.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

18 Miccarelli.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman.

21 And thank you, Mr. Secretary.

22 The governor and the legislature are

23 obviously very worried about the opiate crisis

24 going on in Pennsylvania. And part of the omnibus

25 school code was an idea brought forth by 159

1 Representative Taylor, from Philadelphia, about

2 recovery schools. There was a pilot program and,

3 you know, there was a requirement in the school

4 code, vis-a-vis Representative Taylor’s bill, that

5 your department put forth some type of curriculum

6 and kind of get that ball rolling.

7 Was that done for this for ’16-’17?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Much of the work around

9 recovery schools, you know, the language was

10 introduced. I think the unfortunate part of the

11 bill is that it was not funded. So, the language

12 on the bill and some of the work around the bill

13 was, you know, introduced, and we moved forward.

14 However, the funding for, you know, for the school,

15 the increase, was not included as part of the bill.

16 And I think that’s what contributed to

17 the -- to the standstill. But much of the work and

18 due diligence around it has -- you know, has been

19 accomplished.

20 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: When you say

21 the "work and due diligence,” can you be more

22

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, the coordination

24 with drug and alcohol and the conversation to

25 understand the expectation of the bill and to kind 160

1 of, you know, for lack of better terms, prepared

2 those next steps for facilitation were there. We

3 have just not realized the funding for it yet.

4 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: So, I mean,

5 you’re saying it wasn’t specifically funded, but it

6 was part of the omnibus school code, though;

7 correct?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Without a funding -­

9 without a funding source.

10 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: Without a

11 mechanism. So, there has not been an RFP or

12 anything done to this point.

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: No, not yet.

14 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: Okay. Thank

15 you very much.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

18 Gainey.

19 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Again, good

20 afternoon, Mr. Secretary. How you doing?

21 First, I want to say thank you for all the

22 work that you put in with the Wilkinsburg-City of

23 Pittsburgh public school partnership.

24 I wanted to know what you thought about

25 it. To me, it seemed like it’s been a tremendous 161

1 success, the consolidation between the two — not

2 the whole school district in Wilkinsburg, but a

3 part of it.

4 Secondly has there been any savings that

5 we’ve seen or what does the savings look like in

6 the next five years, going forward?

7 Thirdly is, are we still working closely

8 with the school board in Westinghouse to build a

9 stronger curriculum?

10 I’m happy to report there’s been no major

11 violence, no major setbacks, or anything, just a

12 great unity between two neighborhoods.

13 But what I want to know is, going forward,

14 we also discussed about that curriculum and how we

15 build a strong curriculum to move those kids to

16 where they should be. So, I wanted to follow up

17 with that.

18 And, again, I just wanted to thank you on

19 that.

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you,

21 Representative.

22 And I also want to take a moment and thank

23 you for championing, along with your colleagues,

24 you know, to really make this a success.

25 So, first, we would identify and classify 162

1 it as a success for a number of reasons. One,

2 looking at it fiscally, you know, we were able to

3 provide Wilkinsburg with a pathway, you know, to

4 better balance their budget. We understand that

5 they weren't able to properly provide a program

6 for -- you know, to their school -- to their high

7 school, their middle, high school students, you

8 know, within the district. And not only did the

9 partnership, you know -- you know, help for them to

10 realize, you know, some financial savings, so to

11 speak, or some financial right-sizing -- I don't

12 want to call them savings. It also provided a

13 tremendous opportunity for those students in

14 Wilkinsburg that went on to Westinghouse.

15 So, they had access to an increased number

16 of career and technical education programs that

17 they didn't have access to in their home schools.

18 They had access to course work, advanced placement,

19 and multiple, you know, math and literacy and

20 humanities courses.

21 You know, and lastly, I guess another real

22 point in pride is, since -- you know, since that

23 time, the board of the Pittsburgh Promise

24 Scholarship fund voted to include the Wilkinsburg

25 students as part of the Pittsburgh Promise, meaning 163

1 they’re going to be offered college scholarships to

2 move on from Westinghouse to -- to their choice of

3 postsecondary institutions that that -- you know,

4 that qualify through the program.

5 So, we always, you know, have this

6 conversation around, you know, right-sizing and

7 fiscal, you know, considerations, but this is one

8 of the cases where we’re able to provide, you know,

9 some fiscal stability to two school districts -- a

10 school and the school district -- but, also, you

11 know, almost triple to quadruple the number of

12 offerings to kids, you know, to become successful

13 in life, which is probably, you know, the greatest

14 , when you think about it longitudinally.

15 And, you know, lastly, it’s something that

16 my team and I, you know, continue to monitor. I

17 mean, no -- you know, no marriage or merger is

18 perfect. So, what we do is, whenever we hear any

19 rumbling, we work really hard to get someone on the

20 phone or some boots on the ground to support

21 accordingly.

22 REPRESENTATIVE MICCARELLI: The community

23 of a school model, can you give us a briefing, just

24 from a state perspective, how the Department of

25 Education is playing a role in the community of 164

1 school’s model?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we’re taking a

3 facilitation staffing role. One of the biggest

4 lessons learned, I think, you know, as the

5 secretary, was that we don’t want to own everything

6 fully, because if there’s ever a shift in, you

7 know, in the Commonwealth, in the state, we want

8 this work to continue.

9 Pittsburgh’s probably a great example.

10 We’ve actually had a number of folks in the

11 district helping facilitate and navigate through

12 the process of identifying a district-wide

13 community school coordinator. So, this person will

14 work within the community and facilitate

15 partnerships with hospitals, mental health

16 providers, backpack programs to send food home over

17 the weekend for students and families to eat, you

18 know, connecting with eye doctors and dentists

19 alike, to push services into the schools.

20 So, some of the most robust models of

21 community schools are where doctors and schools

22 work together to provide the services right onsite,

23 among the ground. But some of the other

24 partnerships -- you know, I was just visiting a

25 school that’s engaging here in Dauphin County where 165

1 there were about two hundred backpacks filled with

2 food and everything up to dish washing detergent

3 that was sent home with students who qualified over

4 the weekend, you know, to ensure that the family

5 and the kids were eating, you know, on Saturday and

6 Sunday, all free of charge to the school district

7 and to the school, because local partners stepped

8 up to, you know, provide that service. And, they

9 were able to -- all they had to do was facilitate

10 the process, and as a result, you know the quality

11 of life of students engaged.

12 So, Pittsburgh’s looking to follow a very

13 similar model.

14 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Thank you,

15 Mr. Secretary.

16 Thank you, Chairman.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

18 Curt Sonney.

19 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman.

21 Mr. Secretary, good to see you.

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: Great seeing you, sir.

23 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: I believe you have

24 the authority to authorized the use of about four

25 and a half million dollars a year for school 166

1 districts that are in financial watch or financial

2 recovery.

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes.

4 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Did you use any of

5 those dollars in the ’16-’17 fiscal year?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Going to open up to

7 my fiscally distressed page here really quickly.

8 So, we’ve not distributed all of that

9 funding, but we have -- you know, we have used some

10 of that funding for fiscally distressed school

11 districts. Currently, we have four, and some that

12 are on watch.

13 Some of the funding is used specifically

14 for technical support, to ensure, you know, they’re

15 working to balance their budgets and also to

16 complete, you know, much needed paperwork, you

17 know, to the state and other lenders, as a result.

18 But it’s still one of the areas we have a small

19 balance in.

20 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And do you plan on

21 needing those funds again in the next fiscal year?

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, every year, what we

23 do is, we take -- there’s a small portion of -- you

24 know, of our budget that -- that is held over from

25 year to year. This year, it’s probably a little — 167

1 you know, a little under nine million dollars, and

2 4.5 million dollars of that will be allocated

3 for -- you know, for those recovery funds.

4 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: How many districts

5 do we have in recovery today?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we have four

7 districts in recovery, and we have, you know, a

8 handful of districts that are still in -- that are

9 now on financial watch.

10 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: You said a handful

11 of districts in financial watch?

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes. We do -­

13 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And what do you -­

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: Five, five other

15 districts.

16 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And what is the

17 department looking to achieve when a district is in

18 financial watch?

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: I don’t know if I can

20 use the term "achieve." I mean, you know, what we

21 do by identifying those districts in financial

22 watch gives us an opportunity to provide technical

23 support to those school districts for, you know,

24 anything from review of their, you know, their

25 financial books, so to speak, to connecting them 168

1 with other like resources that can align, allocate,

2 and prioritize funding.

3 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And was financial

4 watch a new program that was just started? Or

5 is -­

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: No, we did not start

7 financial watch or recovery under this

8 administration.

9 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: So, it's been in

10 use for a while.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: It has.

12 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And does watch

13 generally lead to recovery?

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: Not always. You know,

15 there are a number of schools, you know, and school

16 districts that have -- you know, that have been in

17 watch and kind of stay in watch status. But it

18 doesn't always, you know, lead to recovery.

19 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And have you heard

20 from any districts concerning the new funding

21 formula and how that is going to impact them in the

22 future?

23 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I haven't heard

24 from districts specifically regarding the new

25 funding formula and the impact. We are having 169

1 conversations with districts around the data sets

2 and, you know, and how -- you know, how the data

3 sets would -- how the process, you know, would

4 impact how local school districts look at funding,

5 but not -- not as it relates to distressed status.

6 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: You know, quite

7 often, if we change a funding formula, what we

8 really do is make it just a different set of

9 winners and losers, you know. And I’ve already

10 started to hear from some of my local districts

11 that, you know, for lack of a better term, were

12 winners under hold harmless and are going to be

13 losers under the new formula. You know, even

14 though they agreed to it because they think it’s

15 fair, but they’re going to be in trouble.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: I remember sitting as

17 part of the basic education funding commission, and

18 that was, you know, probably the longest

19 conversation we had around, you know, the fact that

20 hold harmless, you know, benefits, you know, some

21 school districts and not others, and, as a result,

22 you know, is agreed upon by -- you know, by the

23 commission and, ultimately, the general assembly

24 and governor, that only new funding would be

25 distributed under the basic education funding 170

1 formula.

2 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Have you noticed

3 any theme whatsoever with the schools that have

4 been in distress in one way or another? You know

5 is there a particular reason why, you know, that

6 they’re there?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: So -­

8 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Because the vast

9 majority obviously are not.

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, many of the school

11 districts that we’ve seen fall within the

12 distressed, you know, school model, it’s -- you

13 know, we see school districts that have lost

14 industry, lost jobs, or tax-paying industry,

15 whether it was, you know, support through grants

16 or, you know, tax contributions, revenue, you know,

17 locally. We’ve also noticed, you know, drops or

18 decline in real estate revenue in some of those

19 districts.

20 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: But all of those

21 then are -- so, really, what you’re saying is, is

22 that it’s their ability to tax the local people is

23 what has been hurting their ability to sustained

24 their budgets.

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: In some of those school 171

1 districts, yes. To generate local revenue. Which

2 is why we continue to -­

3 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: And it’s the local

4 revenue imbalance really that creates the imbalance

5 between all of the districts; correct?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yes, sir.

7 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: You know, those

8 districts that are fortunate enough to be flush

9 with revenue, and have, you know, people living

10 there that have good jobs and -- and can afford

11 higher taxes, they’re paying those higher taxes.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. And that’s why

13 equity was the biggest, you know, point of

14 discussion under the basic education funding

15 commission.

16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: With that -­

17 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you,

18 Mr. Chairman.

19 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

22 Bullock.

23 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you.

24 Mr. Chairman.

25 Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. 172

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: Good afternoon.

2 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I heard

3 you talk about our -- some of our community and

4 schools program, in particular the -- I was really

5 excited to hear about the one program that provides

6 food package and other necessities to families over

7 the weekend.

8 And I wanted to follow up a bit on that.

9 As we know, a lot of our children come to school

10 without breakfast or may not have even had dinner

11 the night before. And nutrition is a very

12 important part to start our day and to actually

13 function throughout the day. And as our children

14 struggle with just learning our A, B, Cs, and 1, 2,

15 3s, the last thing they need to worry about is

16 their stomach speaking to them.

17 And so, I see that there has been -- the

18 budget includes a two-million-dollar investment

19 that may leverage additional dollars to expand our

20 school breakfast programs and other nutrition

21 programs.

22 Can you talk a little bit about the school

23 breakfast and any other nutrition and

24 you may have throughout the Commonwealth?

25 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely. 173

1 The governor’s proposing a

2 two-million-dollar investment that will -- you

3 know, that will allow us to leverage almost ten

4 times that in federal funding to expand our school

5 breakfast program. I mean, as you shared, we know

6 if students come to school hungry, which many of

7 our student do, it is extremely difficult, you

8 know, to learn, engage, and, you know, just

9 generally grow and pay attention.

10 So, part of what we’re doing is not only

11 recommending a financial increase in this program,

12 but we’re looking to change some of the conditions

13 in which our school breakfast programs currently

14 run. So, changing some of the programs. For

15 example, we want to introduce a grab-and-go in some

16 of our secondary schools, where students come to

17 school, and they’re able to grab their breakfast

18 and then go on to their first period. You know, if

19 you have a teenager or above or you know a teenager

20 or above, you know, that, you know, at the

21 beginning of the day, as easy as you can make it

22 for them to nourish themselves while moving on, you

23 know, they’re more likely to engage and

24 participate. And it takes away the stigma, right,

25 you know, of that program. 174

1 And we're also looking at, you know, what

2 I call the breakfast-in-the-classroom program -­

3 there's a more official name for it -- but this is

4 where, in elementary schools, they can serve

5 breakfast in the classroom at the start of the day.

6 You know, sometimes we see some school districts

7 that try to engage in this practice and maybe read

8 during that breakfast program or bring all the

9 students at a time to another room within the

10 school.

11 But this additional funding the governor

12 is, you know, recommending will allow us, you know,

13 to institutionalize some of those models to serve

14 breakfast, and I think, as a result, you know, more

15 and more kids will start participating.

16 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I appreciate your

17 initiatives and looking at school breakfast in a

18 different way.

19 I know at my son's school, they actually

20 do have a school breakfast in the classroom. He's

21 kindergarten, and I think they do that for their

22 preK through first grade classes. And it makes a

23 difference, because other circumstances may prevent

24 a child from getting to school on time or early

25 enough to have breakfast or the stigma that goes 175

1 along with it. So, I really do appreciate you

2 looking at it from all those perspectives and

3 having a more creative way to meet the needs of

4 those children.

5 Do you have any -- or are you aware of the

6 programs that may be available over the summer and

7 during school breaks so that those children can

8 continue to receive school breakfast? I know, in

9 Philadelphia, we do have a very active lunch

10 program. What other programs are you aware of to

11 continue to provide meals and nutrition to those

12 students throughout the summer?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, that’s one of the

14 areas under the direction of the governor again.

15 And he has been actively engaged in this last

16 summer, that we continue, you know, to lobby, in

17 some cases, the federal government, to find ways to

18 meet our federal expectations of reporting and

19 accounting while providing meals to kids over the

20 summer.

21 So, some of what we continue to do is try

22 to find -- we have to have congregational feeding

23 sites, so to speak. And so, how do we -- how do we

24 use that term a little more broadly or how do we

25 create those across the Commonwealth. And not only 176

1 our urban centers, but we’re finding this is a

2 significant issue in many of our rural school

3 districts; right?

4 And so, we’re working together to continue

5 to redefine and reinvest in those areas, interpret

6 the language in a way that best benefits kids. So,

7 we’ll keep doing that as well.

8 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I look forward to

9 seeing how you do that. I know we do some block

10 feeding, like community block programs and day

11 cares and libraries and other ways to get those

12 children to a congregational setting so that they

13 can have access to those nutrition programs.

14 Just real briefly, if I have some time -­

15 I think I do -- in regards to your recruitment of

16 our teachers and substitute teachers within the

17 school districts throughout the Commonwealth, are

18 you seeing any trends or any challenges? And what

19 are your forecasts in that way?

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, this is an area

21 that we are -- that we are especially concerned

22 about. I mean, when we look at almost the past now

23 ten years’ reduction -- I used to share that the

24 number, you know, was over 50. It’s now over 60

25 percent reduction of first-time certified teachers, 177

1 which is a serious concern to us.

2 So, we’re looking at a number of ways.

3 One, changing the program. Secondly, we’re working

4 with some men-of-color programs to diversify the

5 pool and create a pipeline. And, secondly, we’re

6 looking at alignment of some two-plus-two-plus-two

7 programs that will bring teachers.

8 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: What are

9 two-plus-two-plus-two?

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: Yeah. I’ll stop at

11 this.

12 So, two-plus-two-plus-two are two years of

13 high school, two years partnering with, like, a

14 community college or another institution to finish

15 high school while earning general ed higher ed

16 credits, and two years in your concentration

17 aligned to education.

18 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you for

19 sharing.

20 Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing

21 that.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

23 Helm -- or, I’m sorry, Representative Knowles.

24 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you,

25 Mr. Chairman. 178

1 Mr. Secretary, I want to call attention

2 to, in your written testimony, the governor’s

3 2017-2018 proposed pilot for supporting

4 persistently struggling schools. On the top of

5 page eleven, you note: Successes at the school

6 level cannot be sustained in the absence of strong

7 district leadership, reforms to collective

8 bargaining, and attention to within district

9 resourcing.

10 Can you just talk a little bit about what

11 kinds of reform in collective bargaining would you

12 be referring to?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: I think it’s important

14 to capture a full picture as I share that answer.

15 First, we know that, nationally, and, you know,

16 historically, here at the state, when we look at

17 reform models, it’s always based on a really

18 limited source of data, and then making, you know,

19 changes that tend to be structured or, what I like

20 to refer to as, cookie-cutter initiatives pushed

21 in. But we realize, at the root of all school

22 reform, we have to engage people. We have to

23 engage superintendent, principals, teachers, you

24 know, support staff. We have to engage the

25 community. 179

1 So, when we look at, you know, for example

2 reforms to collective bargaining, part of what

3 we’ve done this year -- over the course of the past

4 couple of years -- I will use York city as an

5 example. By engaging them in a really deep-dive

6 diagnostic, the teachers were able to get involved

7 and really have a say in how we -- how we wrote a

8 standard-aligned curriculum from kindergarten

9 through twelfth grade.

10 As a result of some of the interventions

11 that were put in place in that school, when the

12 teachers voted on their new contract, they actually

13 extended their -- they voted to extend their own

14 day by forty minutes. The problem really wasn’t

15 about extending the day. It was about extending

16 the day in a meaningful way. And those teachers,

17 overwhelmingly, you know, voted to extend their

18 day, not because we asked them to, not because we

19 said you had to, but because we created a framework

20 that was meaningful, and they wanted to have a

21 better opportunity to educate kids. So, that’s one

22 example of collective bargaining, you know, changes

23 that can take place.

24 In some schools, we’ve recommended change

25 in principals. And, you know -- and to work, you 180

1 know, to facilitate -- to facilitate that change,

2 you know, with the local school district.

3 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: If I may, sir, I

4 only have five minutes.

5 SECRETARY RIVERA: I get passionate about

6 this.

7 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: I appreciate

8 that, sir.

9 Are there any specific districts or

10 agreements where you think that kind of stuff

11 should be implemented? Did you have any in mind

12 when you were writing this?

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, no. And I think

14 that why -- I mean, I think it would be premature

15 to, you know, to think so. That's why we're

16 starting with deep-dive diagnostic.

17 You know, I think part of the challenge

18 with change -- and we know it as people, as leaders

19 in this room ourselves, when someone tells you you

20 have to change, you know, then there's always a

21 little bit of push-back around the change. Now,

22 when someone engages you and you identify the areas

23 that must be -- that must change, and you engage

24 the local community, there is a greater likelihood

25 for sustained change. And that's what, you know, 181

1 we want to accomplish -­

2 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: My third and

3 final question regarding that sentence, "attention

4 to within district resourcing." Could that

5 possibly include state mandate relief?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: It could. I mean, some

7 of the conversations we’ve been having with the

8 chairs of the Education Committee, you know, in

9 both chambers, sometimes include some of the -­

10 some of the policies that are detrimental to school

11 improvement.

12 So, we don’t do any of this alone. I

13 mean, we tend to really work with — you know, with

14 the staff and with the leaders of the Education

15 Committees.

16 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you,

17 Mr. Chairman.

18 Thank you, sir.

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

21 Boyle.

22 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you,

23 Secretary. I know this is a very long day.

24 I’m right here, by the way. I know, a

25 little further removed. 182

1 But, during the Rendell administration, we

2 saw a huge investment in preK-through-12 education.

3 And we saw a real impact in the test scores of our

4 students because of it.

5 I think of that, because, right now, when

6 I look at the per capita student funding in

7 Pennsylvania, when compared to the rest of the

8 northeastern United States, we lag behind in test

9 scores. And we saw that the progress during the

10 Rendell administration was halted, it was stalled

11 once Tom Corbett became governor.

12 So, I’m curious to see if you think,

13 philosophically, there is a direct connection

14 between education funding and test scores?

15 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, absolutely.

16 We see a direct correlation. And this is

17 something I saw as a superintendent, you know, as

18 well. There is a direct correlation around —

19 between how much is invested per student, you know,

20 at a school and the local level, you know, and that

21 performance. Whether the direct correlation is,

22 you know, directly tied to, you know, the resources

23 that are available to those students or, you know,

24 the income of families, because some of our, you

25 know, higher-income communities just happen to also 183

1 invest more, you know, to their schools in those

2 areas. But there are a number of factors.

3 But as we can see, the data shows that

4 student achievement success is directly tied to

5 socioeconomic standings and the investments made in

6 those schools.

7 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: And you’re aware

8 that we are among the lowest, if not the lowest,

9 among per capita funding for students in the

10 northeastern United States?

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we are -- so our

12 average -- so, our average per student funding

13 makes it look that we’re a little higher, that

14 we’re high. But when you look at the disparity

15 between our lowest districts, our lowest per

16 student funded district and highest per student

17 funded districts, we’re in the -- we’re well low in

18 the lowest quartile. So, that disparity is where

19 we’re probably amongst the worst in the country.

20 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

23 Helm.

24 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you,

25 Mr. Chairman. 184

1 I want to talk about accountability this

2 time. In the governor’s budget proposal, I see a

3 lot of specifics about how much additional funding

4 will be going to school districts, along with a few

5 mentions of stronger accountability.

6 Can you talk in a little more detail about

7 how you plan to hold school districts accountable

8 for their performance and how they spend their

9 additional money?

10 I ask because I’ll often hear people

11 complain about their property taxes, but I hear

12 them say, I don’t mind paying, but I’d like to know

13 about the accountability.

14 SECRETARY RIVERA: Um-hum. So, we’re

15 actually recommending probably one of the most

16 comprehensive accountability systems that we’ve

17 seen. And actually, as we’re looking at, we could

18 probably compare across the country. I think, when

19 you look at what we’ve been identifying -- what

20 I’ve been identifying as the Future Ready PA Index,

21 which will be our system of accountability for

22 schools, is going to look at multiple factors not

23 only standardized tests but reading level, access

24 to high quality programs, enriched language

25 instruction, how we meet the needs of our special 185

1 needs students.

2 So, we are looking at engaging in a much

3 more robust system of accountability. But we’ve

4 also been asking school districts -- they’ve been

5 having to account to us where they’re spending some

6 of the new funding, especially some of the grant

7 funding that we’ve been -- that we’ve been giving

8 to school districts. And I can share with you

9 that, overwhelmingly, the number one area that

10 they’re investing that money is to increase

11 full-day kindergarten classrooms.

12 The second area that school districts have

13 been -- the second highest area school districts

14 have been focusing on is STEM alignment of their

15 programs, so then also utilizing technology as part

16 of the programs.

17 And then, the third area that’s been

18 pretty high is providing professional development

19 for the teachers to do -- you know, to engage in

20 the first two.

21 So, we have been tracking where school

22 districts are spending a lot of their new money,

23 especially those grant funds. And it’s all aligned

24 to some of the best practice we’ve been seeing in

25 education. 186

1 But, you know, once we -- you know, when

2 we come next together and I’m able to present to

3 the smaller groups the Future Ready PA Index what

4 we’ve been putting out there, we’re going to be

5 holding schools accountable for factors that really

6 impact education, moving forward.

7 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: And what about

8 teacher evaluations? What are you doing in that

9 respect?

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, teacher evaluation

11 is driven legislatively. I mean, there’s a law

12 that dictates how we evaluate teachers, which is

13 why I’ve kind of been staying away from that

14 conversation. What I hope to do is change what

15 we’re investing in and how we’re holding schools

16 accountable. And hopefully before my tenure is

17 over as secretary, we can sit down and really have

18 conversations around educator evaluation.

19 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you.

20 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

23 Krueger-Braneky.

24 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank

25 you, Mr. Secretary. 187

1 Pleased to have another round of questions

2 this afternoon to dive into some of the issues on

3 preK and preK to 12.

4 I, like many of my colleagues, was very

5 exci te d to s ee the i ncrease in preK funding this

6 year, seventy-five million dollars. And to my

7 colleague Rep. Kinsey's points, we learned at the

8 corrections hearings last week that we spend about

9 forty-five thousand dollars a year for one person

10 to be incarcerated in Pennsylvania. And by my

11 math, we could be educating five kids in preK for

12 every one person that we're incarcerating.

13 And as you've said over and over again,

14 there's so many indicators -- third-grade reading

15 level, seventh grade math levels -- that help us to

16 evaluate whether a child is going to be on track to

17 be a productive worker or entrepreneur or a higher

18 ed graduate, or to be more likely to be

19 incarcerated. So, this early investment is just so

20 key to everything else.

21 I want to drill down on two issues today

22 related to testing. I have an approved private

23 school in my district, the George Crothers Memorial

24 School, and I've been to visit them a number of

25 times. And the last time that I was there, a 188

1 parent grabbed me and told me about the PASA test

2 and how this is a test that is administered. It’s

3 the Pennsylvania Alternative System of Assessment.

4 And they are required to administer this to all

5 students, even the students in this school who are

6 medically fragile and nonverbal.

7 Why are we requiring testing of nonverbal

8 students? That’s one.

9 And two, how much is it costing us to

10 administer the PASA test?

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, it’s a federal

12 mandate that every student must be tested on -- you

13 know, on the state assessment. The PASA test is

14 actually a test that we administer to the

15 percentage of special needs students. And so, we

16 hear anecdotally and it’s always a question that

17 comes up across the Commonwealth.

18 You know, to share with you -- we can

19 follow up with the specifics around PASA, but I can

20 share with you, we spend about thirty-seven dollars

21 a student on state-wide assessments.

22 I can also share, just while -- you know,

23 since you started with, you know, with early

24 childhood, which I think is an important factor if

25 I don’t get to share it later on, even with the 189

1 significant investments that we have made over the

2 course of the past two years and recommending this

3 year for PreK Counts and headstart, in order to

4 qualify for those programs, you have to live three

5 times above the federal poverty level.

6 So, even with the many slots we've created

7 over the course of the past three years, there's

8 still 60 percent of our students who would qualify

9 that aren't served. So, there's always this

10 question, is, all right, we're creating all of

11 these slots, you know, is there a need? Well,

12 we've just touched the surface. And we've invested

13 a great deal in early childhood over the course of

14 the past, you know, three years together. And, you

15 know, when you take into account, you know, it's

16 still a little over 40 percent, you know, that have

17 been served. And, you know, our rural communities

18 still continue to be underserved and a concern.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: And I

20 appreciate that. Every time I see the governor, I

21 talk about the importance of more preK investment.

22 I think he knows it's coming when he sees me at

23 this point.

24 So, I'd love to see even more in next

25 year's budget, because, again, from the 190

1 return-on-investment standpoint, there’s almost no

2 better investment that we can make, I think.

3 I just want to go back to the testing

4 piece. So, you said that this is a federal

5 mandate. There’s no leeway. There’s nothing that

6 Pennsylvania could be doing. There’s no models

7 from other states to make this a less invasive

8 requirement on families, particularly of kids with

9 severe intellectual disabilities.

10 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Yeah. Thank you.

11 So, right now, we’ve just actually

12 redesigned our PASA exam. And it’s going to be

13 going through the federal peer review process

14 coming up here, and that’s part of what’s required,

15 because it is used to satisfy federal guidelines.

16 And I think, you know, we’ve involved our

17 advocacy communities, and others have been involved

18 in helping us do the redesign. And I think, you

19 know, the challenge is we have to demonstrate an

20 alignment to standards while still making the

21 accommodations for the very significant needs that

22 students have. And there are limitations for how

23 many -- what percentage of our students can take

24 that exam.

25 So, we’ll continue to work with our 191

1 stakeholders on that and, you know, make it an

2 experience that is meaningful -- as meaningful as

3 possible while still demonstrating their knowledge

4 of standards.

5 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: I’m glad

6 to hear that. I’ve sat in a class of nonverbal

7 kindergarten students who were also required to

8 take these same tests. And it just doesn’t make

9 sense. And I don’t think -- at a price of

10 thirty-seven dollars per student on state-wide

11 assessments, I don’t think it’s a good use of any

12 dollars, especially taxpayer dollars.

13 I want to drill down to the Keystone exams

14 as well. The legislature acted last year. There

15 was a moratorium on the Keystones as a -­

16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative,

17 sorry. Another round.

18 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Okay.

19 Thank you.

20 Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: To finish our

22 first round here, Representative Boback.

23 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Thank you,

24 Mr. Chairman.

25 I see, once again, there’s no request for 192

1 funding for the Governor’s Schools of excellence,

2 and that’s a program that’s certainly near and dear

3 to my heart, among others. But that’s a big one,

4 because it’s not driven by income, but it’s for any

5 one of our students that wants to achieve and wants

6 to go above and beyond. It’s for the best and the

7 brightest. And it seems as if we leave them out of

8 the loop, that there’s nothing there for them.

9 And, again, it’s anyone, whether it’s

10 driven or not driven. In this case, income makes

11 no matter.

12 So, my question is, I did see something

13 that, over the past few years, department has been

14 able to direct some funding to the Governor’s

15 Schools. Can you tell me how you did that? What

16 line item is that?

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, first, I share your

18 appreciation of Governor’s Schools, and, of course,

19 this continues to be a difficult budget cycle in

20 which we have to make some difficult priorities.

21 So, not specific to line items, but, you

22 know, because of the impact of Governor’s Schools,

23 what we’ve been able to do and what I’ve been able

24 to really advocate significantly for is, any time,

25 you know, anyone, an industry partner, a business 193

1 partner, some — you know, a national, you know,

2 institution that has, you know, a grant or some

3 additional funding they’d like to allocate, I tend

4 to steer, you know, towards connecting with, you

5 know, with our Governor’s Schools that are out

6 there, because, you know, we understand that it

7 becomes much more difficult to fund educational

8 programs. These are very, you know, worthwhile

9 programs for the students they serve. And so,

10 wherever and whenever I can make connections, you

11 know, for the Governor’s Schools and our

12 constituents that want to support these types of

13 programs, I’m able to do that.

14 You know, secondly, I think there was a

15 small -- there was a small return of federal -- of

16 a federal spend that was given to us. It was a

17 one-time, you know, quick spend that we were able

18 to allocate. It was a small amount of money, but,

19 you know, it was one of the areas that we had to

20 identify quickly. And we were able to identify the

21 Governor’s Schools to receive that.

22 So, it wasn’t a dedicated line item. It

23 was something that was kind of, you know, out there

24 nationally. And we were able to align it to

25 Governor’s Schools. 194

1 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Well, thank you

2 for that. I do have legislation to, once again,

3 bring them back. And maybe we can meet, and any

4 help you can give my cause, because it's also

5 yours, would be appreciated.

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

7 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Again, every part

8 of this spectrum is addressed through the

9 Governor's Schools. So, thank you for that.

10 I'm going to shift my gears and go to the

11 different end of the spectrum with the preK

12 programs. Can you get back to me with how many

13 preK programs we do offer in the state?

14 You can probably answer me, are they

15 driven by income?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, the majority of the

17 program -- so, there is criteria, and income is one

18 of the criteria to participate in a state-funded

19 preK program.

20 So, the share -- actually, you know what,

21 I'm going to let Susann showcase this, because I'd

22 have to read this, but Susann knows this off the

23 top of her head.

24 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Do your thing,

25 Susann. 195

1 DEPUTY SECRETARY MORRIS: Sure.

2 So, through PreK Counts, we support

3 approximately eighteen thousand children. And

4 through our headstart state supplemental assistance

5 program, which supports federal headstart programs,

6 we support approximately fifty-five hundred

7 children. And those are income means tested

8 programs.

9 We also license PDE private academic

10 nursery schools, but don’t provide funding for

11 seats for those schools. So, that offers a variety

12 of programs that are under the PDE purview in terms

13 of touching on the early learning spectrum.

14 And then, on the other side of the house,

15 through DHS, we also offer a child care subsidy.

16 And we offer a quality rating improvement system.

17 I’m sure you’re familiar with the Keystone STARS

18 program.

19 So, we do have a wide variety of early

20 learning programs in the state.

21 And I am not sure if that answers your

22 question in terms of the reach that you’re looking

23 for.

24 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: In a way, it does.

25 But if you could provide me with a list, and I’m 196

1 looking if there are overlaps in any of these

2 programs.

3 Another concern I have, having been a

4 teacher for thirty-three years, that, in our state,

5 kindergarten is not mandated, let alone full-day

6 kindergarten. So, the students that we're helping

7 with preK programs, would some of them have been in

8 a kindergarten program if their district offered a

9 preschool?

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, most of our preK

11 programs are three- and four-year-old programs.

12 So, it's driven by age.

13 I will share with you -- and I don't know

14 the data on this, but I know this anecdotally, just

15 through conversation with superintendents, there

16 are areas in which you may attend a three- or

17 four-year-old program and then not have a full-day

18 kindergarten to attend, so that creates some

19 difficulty for families.

20 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: That's my concern,

21 too.

22 Last question, through the education

23 budget, is that where we get money to feed our

24 children on weekends and during the summer? Where

25 does that money come from? 197

1 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, much of it is

2 federal pass-through dollars, you know, for

3 nutrition. And I will share with you, the weekend

4 feeding programs, and I want to say almost all of

5 that -- but I’ll say most of that, just to make

6 sure I’m not wrong, that’s done locally. Many

7 local districts find ways to provide that support

8 and service to students.

9 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Wonderful. Thank

10 you.

11 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

13 Briggs.

14 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Thank you,

15 Mr. Chairman.

16 Thank you, Secretary.

17 Just, I’m going to plug one of my bills,

18 and then ask you about another topic.

19 Since this last election cycle, fake news

20 and media literacy, I think, has been a concern

21 that keeps coming up. And I introduced House Bill

22 661, which would require the department to come up

23 with curriculum to teach kids how best to filter

24 all the information that’s coming to them. So, if

25 that makes it to you -- or maybe before that, I 198

1 could get some advice on how to make it happen.

2 But, also, something that’s been happening

3 a lot since the last election, and it’s quieted a

4 little bit down, but the instances of bullying and

5 racism and religious tolerance has really bothered

6 me as a father. And I wanted to talk -- ask you a

7 little bit, if you could address how -- what the

8 response of the department was, or, you know, what

9 you guys did after -- after that to best prepare

10 the districts.

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

12 First, I will share with you, on the issue

13 of, you know, how to better navigate, you know,

14 data -- your information that’s online, I’ll put

15 it -- I’ll put it that way, I actually have a

16 number of teachers that have already started

17 writing units around, you know, how students find

18 their information online and how they synthesize

19 that information and, you know, what’s real versus

20 not what’s — you know, what’s not real. And I’ve

21 asked that they submit a lot of that to include on

22 our online portal for other teachers to use. So,

23 there’s a lot of work now happening in schools and

24 school districts across the Commonwealth

25 specifically in that area. 199

1 Secondly, we've seen an uptick on -- you

2 know, on bullying, on bias, you know, based on

3 race, gender identity, based on, you know,

4 socioeconomics, you know, language. And, you know,

5 we've had to respond pretty aggressively. And so,

6 we've taken, you know, a look at some of, you know,

7 what has been done historically, but we also

8 created a bunch of new pathways.

9 So, first, I'll share with you around

10 bullying, we created a bully prevention hotline

11 that we've been disseminating out to schools. And

12 there's actually a -- we've partnered with

13 Highmark, I believe, around that hotline. And

14 there's an actual designated, certified, seasoned,

15 social service professional on the other end of

16 that call, you know, to help -- you know, help

17 those students that who are calling the hotline to

18 discuss just how they're feeling, issues of

19 bullying, and what next steps are.

20 Secondly, we've worked with a number of

21 community partners to address these issues of bias.

22 You know, we've worked with the NAACP, the Urban

23 League, IUs, our patent system, educators,

24 community leaders, to create a response. And as a

25 result, we created a tool kit that we put on our 200

1 online systems, or the SAS portal, SAS PA, for

2 schools across the Commonwealth to utilize the

3 supports, everything from, you know, discussion to

4 intervention, how to deal, you know, with these

5 issues of bullying and bias, you know, language and

6 actions and the like.

7 And then probably, more aggressively or

8 lastly, we’ve identified a number of areas that,

9 you know, we’re having extreme difficulty, in which

10 we had to, you know, kind of pull together what -­

11 you know, what I use -- what we call in the field

12 drop teams, where you kind of send a whole group of

13 system supports, everything from leadership to, you

14 know, to counseling onsite and psychological

15 services onsite to support school districts

16 accordingly.

17 So, we’ve done everything from making

18 resources available to everyone getting into a car

19 and, you know, responding accordingly.

20 And, you know, I’m really proud of my

21 team. I mean, in one day, you know, we realized

22 this was a big issue that we -- we didn’t

23 necessarily have a system, you know, to address

24 comprehensively, and they came together, pulled

25 stakeholders together, and worked hard to address. 201

1 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Thank you for

2 doing that.

3 Is that -- just in your current budget

4 just operating, or was there — was there a

5 department that was in place that you could have

6 expanded on?

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we have a

8 Department of Safe Schools that never kind of dealt

9 with an issue like this. You know, I had to laugh

10 when you said about budgets, because we didn’t even

11 think about where we were going to find the money

12 to do this. You know, we just had a team of twenty

13 people work, you know, through the weekend, all

14 night, to make this happen. And probably,

15 embarrassingly to say, I didn’t even think about

16 it. But no one asked for any form of compensation.

17 They used the resources they had, even expended

18 their own resources, you know, to make it happen.

19 But there’s no designated budget to this. But we

20 were able to utilize some resources out of our Safe

21 Schools office.

22 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Well, thank you

23 for doing that. It sounds like a lot of teachers I

24 know, how they just pitch in and try to finance to

25 problems they face. 202

1 Just in closing, if you could -- am I

2 still good, Chairman? Did I just turn red?

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: When you -­

4 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Round two. Thank

5 you.

6 Thank you, Secretary.

7 Thank you, Chairman.

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you, sir.

9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Sorry,

10 Representative.

11 Representative Roae.

12 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you,

13 Mr. Secretary, for your testimony.

14 As you know, Governor Wolf has proposed

15 that the minimum wage be increased to twelve

16 dollars an hour. I don’t think that would impact

17 the department directly, because all your employees

18 are probably above that. But have you guys

19 evaluated how that would impact school districts

20 and intermediate units and headstarts and, you

21 know, preK programs, and things like that?

22 SECRETARY RIVERA: No. We haven’t done an

23 official evaluation of how that would impact the

24 department or school districts. I can share with

25 you, just anecdotally, as we’ve been engaging in 203

1 conversation, school districts will tell you how

2 much their neighbors are paying those positions

3 probably dictates more what they’re going to have

4 to pay to find qualified individuals. But we

5 haven’t done an official study as to what -- how

6 minimum wage would impact it.

7 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. And then, in

8 your written testimony, on page two, you had

9 written that, you know, PA still ranks near the

10 bottom in state funding. And Governor Wolf, you

11 know, frequently says, that as far as state funding

12 for education, Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom.

13 I was looking at U.S. Census Bureau data,

14 and it shows that the average state spends -­

15 excuse me, they provided five thousand six hundred

16 fifty dollars of revenue per student on average.

17 That’s what the average state does, five thousand

18 six hundred fifty dollars. According to the census

19 bureau, Pennsylvania provides state revenue of six

20 thousand fourteen dollars per student. So, that’s

21 about three hundred sixty-four dollars more than

22 the national average. That’s actually

23 twenty-second highest in the country.

24 If you took that higher dollar amount and

25 you multiply it by the 1.7 million students, 204

1 Pennsylvania's actually providing six hundred

2 nineteen million dollars more than we would be

3 providing if we provided the exact national average

4 for revenue per student.

5 So, my question is, why do you and

6 Governor Wolf keep saying that PA ranks near the

7 bottom when it comes to, you know, state revenue

8 for education?

9 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, when you look at

10 the percentage of state effort as, you know -- as

11 is contributed to per student funding, Pennsylvania

12 is amongst the bottom percentage-wise of what the

13 state contributes to school districts to fund

14 schools, to fund -- for per student funding.

15 Of course, when you look at the numbers,

16 if there are communities in states that invest less

17 dollars and the state gives a few more dollars

18 toward less overall dollars, their percentages may

19 look higher, but when you look at, on average, per

20 student funding, what the state's contribution to

21 that is amongst the lowest in the country.

22 And -­

23 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Well, we have a time

24 limit, so I'm going to move on here.

25 When you look at the average revenue per 205

1 student in the United States of America, the

2 average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is

3 twelve thousand three hundred eighty dollars per

4 student. Pennsylvania is sixteen thousand six

5 hundred forty-four dollars per student. That’s a

6 total of federal, state, and local money. So, in

7 Pennsylvania, it’s the ninth highest in the

8 country. There’s forty-one states that have less

9 revenue for a student in Pennsylvania.

10 It’s frequently said that Pennsylvania,

11 you know, drastically underfunds their schools and

12 there’s no serious effort to provide, you know,

13 funding for education in PA. And the numbers don’t

14 seem to bear that out.

15 But, as far as the percentage you were

16 talking about, if PA school districts started to

17 spend twenty thousand dollars per student or thirty

18 student per student, or forty thousand per student,

19 do you think the state should be providing an

20 ever-increasing amount of funding just so we can

21 have a high percentage of state funding for school

22 districts budget? Or do you feel that Pennsylvania

23 should get school spending under control and see

24 what other states are doing?

25 Because if other states have twelve 206

1 thousand three hundred eighty dollars of tax

2 revenue per student, and Pennsylvania is at sixteen

3 thousand six hundred forty-four dollars of tax

4 revenue per student, you know, why are we so high?

5 And do you think that we should always just

6 automatically give them some percentage of their

7 funding no matter how much they spend?

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I think you have to

9 be very careful when you're looking at numbers and

10 comparing them to other states across the country,

11 because, you know, we know that the truth of the

12 matter is, you also have to take a look at what

13 that investment is yielding. You know, the

14 governor nor I have, you know, sat at the table and

15 asked for increased funding to increase the state's

16 shares or the state's contribution to education

17 without also recommending a robust, intensive, and

18 deliberate system of accountability.

19 Secondly, when you take a look at just

20 Pennsylvania as an educational system or unit,

21 we're the twelfth largest school system in the

22 country, which also demands that we're going to

23 invest a little more, you know, total --

24 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Should be more

25 , if we're one of the largest; right? 207

1 There’s greater cost effectiveness -­

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative,

3 I have to cut you off with that.

4 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: All right. Thank

5 you, Mr. Chairman.

6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

7 Grove.

8 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 Secretary, good to see you again.

11 Question one, just going back to the

12 conversation with my colleague here, if you’re

13 looking at local efforts and how much that plays an

14 affect between state funding and local funding, a

15 lot of states have spending caps on local school

16 districts. Are you suggesting we need spending

17 caps to control local spending so we can get to a

18 50/50 split?

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, that’s not

20 something we recommended, nor have dug, you know,

21 more deeply in. But what I — you know, just as a

22 glance, as I consider it, we know that we’re very

23 locally controlled. We have school boards, five

24 hundred school boards across the Commonwealth that

25 make that decision every year. And I would never 208

1 assume to make a recommendation to the general

2 assembly that, you know, removes that authority

3 from the local school board.

4 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. I don’t know

5 why I was looking at it, but the actual original

6 school code passed by Thaddeus Stevens and the

7 former Governor Wolf was actually a 50/50 split

8 between state and local school districts. But the

9 school districts were capped at the amount of money

10 the state shared. So, if you want to talk about

11 original 50/50, that was the original 50/50 split.

12 And there was a spending cap.

13 Moving on to kind of benchmarking, there

14 has been discussion about preK. Is it the goal of

15 the administration with PreK Counts and headstarts

16 to add individual slots, basically student slots?

17 Is that your overarching goal, moving forward, for

18 this fiscal ask?

19 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we have been -­

20 we’ve been sharing how the funding impacts early

21 childhood by sharing what the number of slots

22 created are, but our goal is to create high quality

23 preK centers.

24 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. So, you want

25 to benchmark that to actual outcomes of those 209

1 programs; correct?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Ultimately, yes.

3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So, you could use

4 KI, and you can use reading at a -- reading at

5 grade level by third grade; correct?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: Ultimately, we should

7 be able to. It’s not currently a system that we

8 have aligned, but it’s something -­

9 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. Because I

10 look at your program measures, and it is,

11 literally, we just want more slots versus actually

12 benchmarking it to outcome.

13 So, if you could provide the committee -­

14 and how long have we had PreK Counts? Decades?

15 SECRETARY RIVERA: About -­

16 DEPUTY SECRETARY MORRIS: Yes. It’s on

17 its ten-year anniversary.

18 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Ten years. All

19 right.

20 We should have robust data on the success

21 of those students, moving forward. So, how were

22 they at grade level, particularly the original

23 students enrolled? So, more robust data on the

24 success of that would be beneficial, moving

25 forward, to make sure we are funding outcomes. 210

1 Second question is, in your accountability

2 benchmarks, particularly, I have interest in why

3 last year's executive budget 2016-'17, for

4 accountability for K through 12, you used percent

5 of CT students proficient, advanced in mathematics

6 PSSAs. This year, you used percentage of students

7 proficient, advanced in mathematics.

8 Why use CTE last year and K through 12

9 this year?

10 By the way, it reflects how wonderful CTE

11 is doing, but it does not provide a benchmark to

12 see success, moving forward.

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: That's probably

14 something that we'll to have -- do we have that

15 information in front of us today?

16 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I'm not sure what

17 you're referring to. You're right in that our

18 NOCTI scores have increased every year for the past

19 five years, and we're at about an 87 percent pass

20 rate.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: It's your actual

22 measures in the '16-'17 executive budget. We're

23 literally comparing success between last year and

24 this year. One is on CTE, the other is overall

25 students. That does not provide a good benchmark. 211

1 And then, when I look further, last year,

2 your actual benchmarks for reading, because reading

3 we can compare, in ’15-’16, you wanted 77 percent

4 proficient, advanced, 79 percent in ’16-’17, and

5 then ’17-’18 you wanted 82 percent.

6 This year, you’re reflecting for ’15-’16,

7 a 60 percent proficiency, 63 percent proficiency in

8 ’16-’17, and a 66 percent proficiency in ’17-’18.

9 What’s the discrepancy percent reduction

10 between last year and this year?

11 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So, one thing to

12 bear in mind is that in spring of 2015, we went to

13 a new PSSA exam, and so, because it’s a different

14 exam, the scores had to be adjusted to match the

15 targets based on the administration. It’s not the

16 same exam.

17 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So, the 17 percent

18 reduction is in -- because of a realignment of

19 what, again, the PSSA?

20 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So, I think it

21 would be good. We can follow up with that

22 information for you.

23 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Yeah. Because this

24 is PSSA, it’s not the FRPI. It’s not that

25 benchmark. You’re looking at a different one. 212

1 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: Sure.

2 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: And then, I noticed

3 that the percent gained in mathematics PSSA

4 proficiency from fifth to eighth grade, same

5 students, and then, percent gains in reading

6 proficiency from fifth to eighth grade, same

7 students, is traditionally just going to increase

8 by 2 percent and 3 percent.

9 Are you predicting additional dollars in

10 the out year budgets?

11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative,

12 I’m going to cut you off with that.

13 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. Thank you.

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

15 Kampf.

16 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Thank you,

17 Mr. Chairman.

18 Mr. Secretary, just a quick comment, and

19 then I’ll get into a couple of questions.

20 You were talking about a -- a state of our

21 size, eleventh or twelfth, I guess, in terms of

22 enrolled students in the country. I think you were

23 essentially saying we ought to be spending more.

24 At least, when you include state, local, and

25 federal dollars, my understanding is we’re fifth in 213

1 the country, twenty-eight billion.

2 So, if you -- in my mind, if you count all

3 that, I think we meet your standard.

4 And there was a comment earlier about the

5 Rendell administration putting significant dollars

6 into basic education. And while that may be true,

7 there was, in that year, a -- a very regrettable

8 short changing of the public school retirement

9 system contributions. And as a result of that,

10 this year, we are going to contribute -- us and the

11 locals -- four and a half billion of that

12 twenty-eight billion just to keep the pension fund

13 going, which is one of the reasons why I'm a very

14 ardent advocate for defined contribution plans.

15 Because if we had one back at that time, we would

16 not be in this very regrettable situation.

17 That said, the PA assessment line is

18 fifty-eight million three hundred thousand this

19 year. It was the same last year and the year

20 before. We noticed in the materials that you sent

21 to us on the spending for two years ago that you

22 had a budget reserve of 3.3 million. And then for

23 this -- for '16-'17, you have an unspent amount, so

24 far, of thirteen million out of that amount.

25 So, I guess my question is, is that three 214

1 million and that thirteen million available, such

2 that we might be able to reduce the 58.3 for

3 ’17-’18 and put it somewhere else?

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: The funding that was

5 placed in budgetary reserve and available is the

6 funding that was the set aside for the graduation

7 requirements, which are currently placed in a

8 moratorium through Senate Bill 880. Once a

9 graduation requirement is approved, we are going to

10 have to shift that funding to maintaining -- for

11 maintenance on the new graduation requirements.

12 So, that is -- those are funds that are set aside

13 to meet the needs of the -- once we have a grad

14 requirement placed, to facilitate that process.

15 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. What about

16 the thirteen million for ’16-’17?

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: That’s what those funds

18 were.

19 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: I thought -- so,

20 the three million from ’15-’16 is set aside for the

21 graduation requirements, and the thirteen million

22 for ’16-’17 is also set aside for the graduation

23 requirement?

24 SECRETARY RIVERA: For graduation

25 standards, correct. 215

1 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: So, for example, if

2 that was -- if that was postponed, might we be able

3 to free up sixteen million?

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: No. We wouldn’t have a

5 graduation requirement for students to graduate

6 from high school in the Commonwealth. We’re

7 actually pushing to have an actual graduation

8 requirement in place.

9 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. But, for

10 example, if that were put off, sixteen million from

11 the prior to year would be available; correct?

12 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: It wouldn’t be.

13 If I may, just briefly. You’re right

14 about the 3.3 in budgetary reserve from last

15 year -- from last year’s waiver dollars. For this

16 year, that thirteen million that you’re referring

17 to are the dollars that have not yet been expended.

18 So, it’s unclear how many of those dollars will be

19 used for -­

20 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Do you have an

21 estimate for how much of the thirteen million will

22 be available or set aside for the graduation

23 requirement?

24 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: We set aside -­

25 given some of the unknowns, it depends on the way 216

1 that the graduation requirements would be written

2 into law. So -­

3 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. And then,

4 for ’17-’18, are you also assuming some amount will

5 be for the graduation requirement?

6 SECRETARY RIVERA: In ’17-’18, we’ll have

7 full assessment, but some of it will be allocated

8 for graduation as well as our other assessment -­

9 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And, I mean, I’m

10 just trying to free up some dollars here, if

11 possible, Mr. Secretary.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Understood.

13 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Roughly, for

14 ’17-’18, is there any money that’s going to be set

15 aside again for the graduation requirement?

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: I would say, while we

17 have -- there will be some funding allocated for

18 the graduation requirement as -­

19 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: How much do you

20 think?

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: Year to year, we look

22 at what those line items are and what’s needed to

23 fund.

24 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Thank you.

25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative 217

1 Greiner.

2 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thanks,

3 Mr. Chairman.

4 I want to go back to a question that was

5 kind of asked before the lunch hour on people

6 transportation. And I know you said you had a part

7 of that decision making. The budget proposes four

8 hundred ninety-nine million dollars for that, and

9 it's a decrease of fifty million. We talked about

10 that. That's a 9 percent decrease.

11 The budget indicates the savings will be

12 realized through from a new proposed

13 funding formula.

14 A couple things. Let me list the

15 questions.

16 Can you provide any more details on the

17 this new funding formula? When will we be able to

18 see a printout that shows how much our school

19 districts received in '16-'17 and how much they're

20 projected to receive in '17-'18 under this new

21 proposed formula? Can you explain exactly how this

22 new formula creates efficiencies and cost savings?

23 Will the school districts be required to collect

24 and submit additional data? And the last question,

25 isn't it possible that a school district's cut in 218

1 their transportation funding could actually be

2 greater than the increase that they receive in

3 their basic education funding?

4 And I’m just going to make -- just opine

5 just for a second, in that, for the sake of

6 transparency and doing things the right way, if we

7 were going to have a formula such as this, why

8 wouldn’t we want to create a commission like we did

9 for special ed and for basic education?

10 I mean, I actually think that’s something

11 that should have been considered. That — but I’ll

12 let you answer those others questions.

13 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, efficiencies within

14 the transportation subsidy formula was one of the

15 recommendations that also came as a result of the

16 McKinsey Report.

17 So, the Department of Education and the

18 governor’s budget office came together and created

19 a starting — a starting point. So, there is -­

20 so, first, in terms of the detailed formula, there

21 isn’t yet a detailed formula. We’re actually

22 looking to both work within the governor’s office

23 and with members of the general assembly to, you

24 know, really solidify what a formula looks like.

25 So, when we identified the fifty million 219

1 dollars in proposed savings, there were a number of

2 considerations that went into account.

3 First, the current formula was last

4 adopted in 1972. And when we compared 1972 to this

5 year, we know that there are opportunities to find

6 efficiencies in a number of areas. You know,

7 first, the fuel cost, fleet management, you know,

8 efficiencies in -- you know, advances in fuel

9 efficiency, you know, as well as changes in routes

10 across district schools.

11 We also realize what’s different from the

12 ’70s is that -- is that 80 percent of our current

13 school districts outsource their people

14 transportation services. So, we’ve not necessarily

15 looked at a way to incentivize changes in that

16 bidding process, you know, which is something that

17 I know comes up, you know, normally in

18 conversations that -- you know, that we have

19 together.

20 So, first, you know, I can share with you,

21 detailed formula, we looked at some of those

22 potential efficiencies, but, you know, that’s

23 something that both the governor’s budget office

24 and the Department of Education will work, you

25 know, with the staff from the general assembly to 220

1 solidify many of those factors.

2 The printout, historically, the department

3 has never done a transportation printout. So, it's

4 not something that we probably run a comparison or

5 be able to run a comparison around. I shared with

6 you where we think we can find, you know, those

7 efficiencies. And one of the areas that I would

8 specifically, you know -- you know, work to

9 advocate, you know, against is trying to require

10 more, you know, data and information from school

11 districts. We have had the, you know, the data,

12 you know, review committee and, you know, we

13 continue to try to maintain efficiencies in that

14 data.

15 And then, of course, you know, part of our

16 conversation together will be, you know, whether or

17 not there would constitute a situation or a time in

18 which the cut would be greater than the increase.

19 But it's an old formula. And this was one

20 of the areas that was identified, you know. And

21 both the budget office and the Department of

22 Education thought it would be a good starting point

23 to move forward to try to find efficiency in

24 that -- in transportation.

25 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: I appreciate, 221

1 appreciate the answers. I do think that we need to

2 be more open. I think we need to look at this —

3 there’s a lot of rumors out there from different

4 schools about how things are being done and how

5 much they’re getting. I mean, like you said, you

6 don’t even have a formula and we’re already hearing

7 it. And I do think it’s something that needs to be

8 looked at.

9 And I am concerned about schools getting

10 less funding than the prior year, when you look at

11 their grand -- you know, the total allotment. So,

12 I -- I think it’s something we’re going to be

13 looking at, because I know it’s a very key part of

14 this budget. So -­

15 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

16 And if I can just reiterate, because I

17 think it’s important for me to mention, this is a

18 starting point. You know, we haven’t solidified a

19 formula. We fully intend to work with the budget

20 office and the general assembly to realize, you

21 know, the savings.

22 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thanks,

23 Mr. Secretary.

24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

25 Quinn. 222

1 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you.

2 Thanks for hanging in there with us today.

3 So, back looking at the GGO lines for your

4 department, and I see where the benefit factors for

5 2017 are going to increase by 1.7 percent to 71. -­

6 I think it’s to 71.70 percent.

7 Could you please break that down for me

8 with regard to pensions? How much of that is

9 pension? How much is health benefits?

10 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

11 DIRECTOR MARIANO: So, you’re correct.

12 The average benefit percentage of salary for

13 ’17-’18 is about 72 percent. And that equals about

14 12.6 million dollars.

15 And then that percentage of pension -- the

16 percentage of that that is pension costs is about

17 32 percent, or around five million dollars. And

18 so, the pension costs make up about 42 percent of

19 the total benefit.

20 And I don’t have specific numbers on the

21 breakdowns of, like, Social Security or health care

22 or anything like that, pension being one of the

23 largest.

24 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: So, let me ask.

25 When you say 12.6 million dollars for health, is 223

1 that the entire payment towards health benefits?

2 Or is that the increase?

3 DIRECTOR MARIANO: I’m sorry. It’s 12.6

4 million dollars is all benefits, not just health.

5 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Okay. Thanks.

6 I believe I asked this time last year the

7 same question. I’ve asked this of others.

8 With regard to an audit on dependent

9 benefit -- on a beneficiary’s dependents, and it

10 was just brought to my attention today that there

11 was a press release put out by the auditor general

12 of Pennsylvania, just held a press conference the

13 other day, and he discussed a recent audit of the

14 York County Children and Youth -- nothing to do

15 with education -- but according to the audit, there

16 was almost five hundred and seventy-nine thousand

17 dollars of cost savings, going forward, for

18 disallowed costs. The majority of the money was

19 disallowed costs related to health benefits.

20 You do not have a huge complement of

21 people, however our school districts do. Would you

22 be supportive of a dependent benefit audit

23 throughout the school districts of Pennsylvania to

24 ensure that those people who are getting the

25 benefits that taxpayers are paying for are actually 224

1 eligible for them?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Many school districts

3 across the Commonwealth -- as a matter of fact,

4 when I was a superintendent, I engaged in a

5 dependent audit of my school district. Now, in

6 order to find continued savings, it’s actually

7 happening in many school districts -­

8 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: So, do you agree

9 that it’s a good thing to do from a policy point of

10 view?

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: I always -- I don’t

12 know why it wouldn’t be or would be in terms of

13 policy. But any time anyone asks me whether it’s a

14 good move for policy, I’m always -- there are lot

15 of nuances we would need to discuss. But I do

16 support school districts engaging in dependent

17 benefit -­

18 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: When your -- when

19 you were superintendent and conducted it, did you

20 realize some cost savings, going forward?

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: We did realize some.

22 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Then I would think

23 that it would be common sense, that given, you

24 know, studies that have found it -- I’ve yet to

25 come across an article or -- I’ve done a lot of 225

1 work on this -- where there’s been -- where we

2 haven’t realized great savings.

3 I’m going to just switch. Earlier, in

4 answer to someone else, you talked -- there was a

5 question about mandates, and you commented that you

6 would be -- I don’t want to put words in your

7 mouth, but basically interested or happy to look at

8 mandate policies that are detrimental.

9 Could you identify a couple of them,

10 please?

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: You know, mandates are

12 interesting -- well, yes. So, we continuously

13 engage in conversations with both school board

14 members and the association with superintendents,

15 you know, to always, you know -- we engage in

16 conversations around mandate control.

17 It’s interesting. That’s also why I’m

18 reluctant to support a policy that says you have to

19 do a dependent audit because it’s a mandate. And

20 that’s -- you know, kind of falls in line with, you

21 know, before we engage -­

22 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: -- the companies -­

23 excuse me -- that offer those audit actually have

24 provisions that they will either find enough of the

25 losses to cover their billing or you don’t pay for 226

1 the extra. So -­

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: If you're large enough.

3 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Yeah.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I think, some of

5 the -- I didn't come prepared to share some of the

6 specifics mandates, but I can share with you what

7 we have been doing, you know, as part of -- you

8 know, as part of our regular check-ins with the

9 education community. We meet regularly with both

10 superintendents and principals and organizations.

11 And whenever there's a way for us to lift a process

12 or procedure to help support them through a process

13 or procedure, we do so.

14 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I'm delighted that

15 you're looking at it. But my question was, are

16 there -- which ones, off the top of your head -- do

17 you have an example of one that you believe is

18 detrimental?

19 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: I mean, I could

20 give a process example. One of the things that we

21 put into place is some electronic monitoring for

22 districts for their -- for their assessment

23 controls. So, it makes it more time — less time

24 on the districts then to fulfill that task. And

25 those are the types of things that our department 227

1 routinely is taking a look at in terms of our

2 processes and not overburdening districts.

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: Or in higher education,

4 we put an online certificate process in place, so

5 you can order your certificate online, which then

6 saves school districts time and money when looking

7 to certifying someone -- certify to teach in that

8 area. So, we try to engage in some of those

9

10 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you very

11 much.

12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

13 Keller.

14 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you,

15 Mr. Chairman.

16 I just want to make sure that I'm clear on

17 my ask from previously, and then I'll move on.

18 On the chart on page eight of the

19 governor's Budget in Brief, for the years listed on

20 this chart, which is '08-'09 through '17-'18, these

21 bar graphs, I would assume, since we have numbers

22 here, we probably have the inputs that were -- for

23 this chart, so if we can get an accounting of

24 everything that's included in those? I think it

25 would be beneficial to everybody, for transparency, 228

1 to see everything that we’re including in those

2 items.

3 I’d like to move on to page nine of the

4 same document. You mention about the improvement

5 efforts for the school districts, and it’s the ESSA

6 and the governor’s vision for improvement. And it

7 mentions the funds will be used to conduct

8 diagnostic audits and determine specific district

9 and school needs, develop improvement plans and

10 prepare for implementation of those plans in the

11 following school year. The districts will have

12 three years to demonstrate improved performance,

13 and so on.

14 As far as, you know, the diagnostic

15 audits, who’s going to perform those? Or have you

16 not worked that out yet.

17 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, we don’t have -­

18 so, we don’t have the specific, you know,

19 individual firms or institutions that will support

20 those audits, but there are -- there are

21 institutions of higher ed. There are third-party

22 individuals that come in and provide good,

23 deep-dive diagnostics for school districts.

24 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Have we considered

25 having our best performing school districts help 229

1 with those audits?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Well, an audit’s -- an

3 audit is very different than identifying best

4 practices in education. So, for example, you know,

5 part of an audit may be to provide, you know,

6 on-the-site review and engage with individual -­

7 so, I’ll give you one of the findings of an audit,

8 for example. You know, one of the finds of one of

9 the audits we provided was that the curriculum that

10 the school district was providing wasn’t a

11 standard-aligned curriculum. So, in order to do

12 that, you have to take a look at, you know, the

13 school district’s curriculum in K, you know,

14 through 12 and provide a crosswalk to every aspect

15 of the PA core standard and then provide that

16 alignment.

17 So, there are individuals that can do

18 that, but the time intensity of the process, you

19 know, would probably discount the number of, you

20 know, school districts or individuals within those

21 school districts that do it themselves.

22 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. But I’m not

23 saying within the school districts. I’m saying

24 that, you know, the best way to learn -- the best

25 way to learn something is to go to an area that’s 230

1 doing it well and take their practices. I mean,

2 have we -- do we do that in education?

3 I know businesses do it a lot of times.

4 If somebody’s competitor is doing something very

5 well, they tend to take a look at it. Even within

6 an organization that has multiple factories or

7 multiple locations, you know, if one location is

8 doing something very well, you get on it right

9 away. And I don’t if we’ve considered, you know,

10 in education, employing some of those principles

11 that would -- that would get the ball moving more

12 quickly, because somebody that’s running a well-run

13 district with good success in areas might be able

14 to help the other district more quickly than

15 somebody that’s not familiar with those outcomes.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, that is part of the

17 process. As we identify — and that’s why the

18 diagnostic is so important. It allows you to

19 identify deficiencies and strengths, and then you

20 can identify a partner for that school or a leader

21 for that school to help focus on those specific

22 areas.

23 You know, we spend a lot of time with

24 business and industry partners, and they’ll tell

25 you, I just can’t pick up one plant, you know, in 231

1 western PA and move it, you know, to northeastern

2 PA and it’s going to be successful, because there

3 are many other factors that go in play, everything

4 from leadership, you know, to input.

5 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: When you’re

6 dealing with people, and you’re dealing with kids,

7 it’s not all the same. And I recognize that. But

8 there are some basic principles that work across

9 all the -- all the schools, you know, employing

10 certain practices. We know those best practices.

11 The other thing I was looking at was the

12 accountability measures or seeing how schools

13 improve. And I know you mentioned that several

14 times.

15 In looking at what we do, legislatively,

16 what might we be able to change that would help

17 with accountability in our school districts?

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: So, I know we’re having

19 a number of conversations around, you know, how,

20 legislatively, we can support some of our current,

21 you know, systems of accountability.

22 One of the big ones that we’re really

23 aggressively moving forward with this year are the

24 graduation requirements. You know, we currently

25 have a system that’s aligned to only the Keystone 232

1 Exams, moving forward, and we see an opportunity to

2 align industry standards and college readiness

3 standards to those.

4 So, I think that’s one -- not one of the

5 areas that we can engage in -- that’s one of the

6 areas, you know, that I’m hoping this year we do

7 engage in, because that will change behavior in

8 schools as well. They’ll stop focusing solely on

9 the standardized test and look more at success

10 factors for students across the board.

11 So, I think that’s a low-hanging fruit for

12 us, because we’ve already done our work, you know,

13 as expected of the assembly and have done our due

14 diligence. So, I think that’s a -- you know, never

15 easy, but a quicker one -- you know, quicker

16 conversation we can engage in. And I think,

17 longitudinally, we can definitely take a look at,

18 you know, how we utilize our systems of

19 accountability, you know, to engage in school

20 improvement.

21 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Because I think we

22 all want the same thing. We want students that

23 graduate that are ready. We want them to have the

24 best administration, the best teachers, and the

25 best opportunities to succeed. 233

1 Thank you.

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

4 Pyle.

5 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Hi, Mr. Secretary.

6 As you know, we are on a five-minute

7 thing, and I'm looking at a light here. So, I'm

8 going to go quick.

9 I'm going to pose some questions. I know

10 you'll require time to answer.

11 One of those has actually been, has

12 PDE ever done a study on the growth of IEPs over

13 the last ten years as a proportion of the student

14 population? That's my first question.

15 I tend to see special education spending

16 going up. And I know there are some rather unique

17 individual accommodations for some students. I

18 also am theorizing that the number of IEPs, since

19 we opened up how easy it is to get one, has

20 expanded exponentially, giving special ed

21 protection and accommodation to that individual

22 student.

23 Like my friend, Representative Kampf, we

24 are looking for ways to save a buck here.

25 Is it fair to correlate educational 234

1 spending with student achievement? And if so, over

2 the past twelve years, how have our students’ test

3 scores fared?

4 I know for each of those twelve,

5 education, as a general expenditure, has doubled

6 the rate of inflation. So, I’m imagining we’re

7 probably looking at a number around 30 to 40

8 percent increase in education funding. And I just

9 wanted to know, since we keep using the word

10 "investment, investment, investment, investment,”

11 what is the ROI on our increased spending? That’s

12 my second question.

13 Third one, and this one I don’t know

14 that -- I don’t know how we would do it, but it’s a

15 valid question. Out of the five hundred school

16 districts in the state, how many of the new hires

17 over the last few years have been on educational

18 personnel administrative staff?

19 Which leads to my next question -­

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Can you clarify that

21 question? I’m sorry.

22 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Yes. Whenever we

23 have to bring in a speech pathologist, whenever we

24 have to bring in an audiologist, whenever we have

25 to bring in -- how many of these people are 235

1 noneducational personnel? We're bringing in more

2 of a medical application than an educational.

3 Because we know those are more expensive than

4 paying teachers.

5 I'm real curious about this diagnostic

6 audit. What are we measuring? Are we looking at

7 student test scores? Are we looking at

8 ADA compliance? Are we looking at they have the

9 best paperwork? What exactly are we talking about?

10 And, finally, one last one, and this is

11 for the good of the order. I'm fortunate, or

12 unfortunate, however you want to look at it, at

13 being in a school district that has free or reduced

14 lunches. We have a situation that makes no sense,

15 in that you're going to go -- in to an area with a

16 lesser income basis and give their kids food, which

17 we all know is needed to be able to learn, but my

18 question is, when our kids go through the line,

19 they are told they have to take the entire lunch,

20 and then set off the parts they don't want on a

21 table at the end of the lunch line.

22 I have a little girl whose grandparents

23 are dairy farmers, and she packs her lunch every

24 day, and all she wanted to do was get a carton of

25 milk, fifty, sixty cents. She was told, unless she 236

1 took the entire free lunch, she could not have that

2 carton of milk, which just strikes me as amazingly

3 and grossly wasteful. And that’s something, I

4 think, maybe you could take a look at. I’m not

5 sure there’s an answer to that. And I’m sure

6 there’s a lot of federal inference.

7 But what are we really teaching the kids?

8 And I say that from the heart, having fourteen

9 years in a public classroom. We teach them to be

10 efficient; don’t be wasteful. And here we are

11 institutionalizing it. If a kid doesn’t want the

12 damn grilled cheese sandwich and just wants a

13 carton of milk, don’t make them take the grilled

14 cheese sandwich. We could save a lot of money.

15 I appreciate your indulgence. Thank you.

16 And I’ll look forward to getting some answers to

17 those questions.

18 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

19 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Thank you, Chairman.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I’m just going

21 to take a moment to recognize Representative Milne,

22 for the purpose of an introduction.

23 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you,

24 Mr. Chairman.

25 As we continue to work our way through 237

1 education today and speak of education success

2 stories, I just want to recognize two student from

3 PASSHE, Pennsylvania State System of Higher

4 Education, who are in the room today. One of them

5 is Mike Walter. I will ask Mike to stand a moment.

6 Mike is a student of mine at West Chester

7 University. And with him is Brittany Feichtel, who

8 is a student at Millersville University. And both

9 of them are here as semester residence with the

10 Harrisburg internship semester program.

11 And they have gone right to the top.

12 Mike’ interning in the office of House Speaker Mike

13 Turzai, and Brittany is with the office of Majority

14 Leader Dave Reed.

15 And we’re delighted to know they’re having

16 a tremendous experience with our appropriations

17 process and learning quite a bit, they tell me.

18 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.

20 They haven’t gotten bored yet, apparently.

21 Representative Dunbar.

22 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you,

23 Mr. Chairman.

24 And thank you, Secretary.

25 Again, let’s go through the budget. 238

1 I’m right up here, front and center.

2 You’ve been staring at my name all this time.

3 SECRETARY RIVERA: I know. I know.

4 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Quick side things,

5 as long as we’re talking about staring at names,

6 I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Stem, you are the most

7 appropriately named man to serve on education that

8 I think -­

9 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEM: So I’ve been told.

10 Thank you.

11 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Sorry. Anyways -­

12 his name is Stem, S-t-e-m. I can’t get over that.

13 As we go through the appropriation -- can

14 I have my time back? I don’t need it, really.

15 As we go through the appropriations and

16 look at all that stuff that’s in the budget, I see

17 a proposed increase of twenty-five million for

18 special ed, a proposed increase for a hundred

19 million for basic ed, a proposed increase for

20 sixty-five for preK, ten million for headstart, and

21 two hundred forty million for pensions, and then we

22 have a fifty-million-dollar decrease for people

23 transportation.

24 Reminds me of my childhood, sitting there

25 watching Sesame Street, one of these things is not 239

1 like the other one. One of these things does not

2 belong. And it makes you wonder, like, what the

3 heck? Why that?

4 And I know Representative Greiner had gone

5 through that a little bit. But I just had a couple

6 quick questions.

7 First off, the appropriation for people

8 transportation is not a total dollar-for-dollar

9 reimbursement. It’s a partial reimbursement. Is

10 that correct?

11 SECRETARY RIVERA: Correct.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: So, it being a

13 partial reimbursement, we’re not -- we’re not

14 actually -- you know, the savings that we may see

15 as we go through this process, this new -- this

16 starting point, as you said, on this process, we

17 can’t attribute to one direct thing. So, it’s not

18 like every school’s going to save a certain amount

19 and their appropriation would be adjusted. It

20 would be a percentage.

21 And the concern is that, why the heck

22 didn’t you just net the two, the one hundred BEF

23 increase and the fifty million people

24 transportation, just have a fifty-million-dollar

25 increase on BEF, until you have this starting point 240

1 established and an actual, you know, plan in place?

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: The -­

3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And you understand

4 the concerns, do you? That how BEF is allocated

5 out is a funding formula, where some school

6 districts get more than others.

7 SECRETARY RIVERA: Um-hum. So, we think

8 it's a good -- it's a legitimate question.

9 As we look specifically at the -- you

10 know, the current formula by which we drive

11 transportation funding, we took a number of factors

12 into account. So, you know, of course, all the

13 factors that I shared — I don't want to take up

14 too much more time, you know, sharing them again -­

15 so we felt that if we could incentivize some better

16 practice in terms of, for example, bidding. You

17 know, 80 percent of people transportation is bid

18 out to the vendor. You know, there's now an

19 incentive that we can come up with a good system

20 that incentivizes school districts to push those

21 savings on through the bid, they could realize no

22 reduction in terms of, you know, the revenue they

23 receive locally.

24 So, you know, we're really looking at an

25 old, out-dated formula, and trying to find the way 241

1 to incentivize better practice as it relates to

2 fuel efficiency and all the other things I shared.

3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: I would hope all

4 the school districts would be incentivized to find

5 savings any way they can without a carrot hanging

6 in front of them.

7 It’s just -- it’s a concern, especially in

8 my districts, where, you know, they’re going to

9 see, you know, the BEF formula doesn’t produce as

10 much as what the people transportation will be.

11 So, it is a concern.

12 SECRETARY RIVERA: Understood.

13 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: And I still don’t

14 understand why they just weren’t netted until it

15 was finalized.

16 SECRETARY RIVERA: You know, I feel like I

17 can only share that, as I have been sharing, and

18 definitely not a -- you know, an excuse of an

19 answer, but we understand that, you know, during

20 this difficult budget, you know, cycle, I’ve

21 advocated, you know, and the governor continued to

22 advocate for additional funding for education

23 across the board, and this was one of the areas, as

24 many of my, you know, partner agencies are finding

25 efficiencies within their department, this is one 242

1 of the areas that was identified to try to find

2 some savings.

3 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.

4 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you.

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

6 Donatucci.

7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,

8 Mr. Chairman.

9 Hello, again.

10 Regarding ESSA, will you please discuss

11 how your department has been working to develop

12 Pennsylvania's state plan? And also, what are you

13 hearing from the many stakeholders engaged in the

14 process?

15 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

16 So, our team has done an amazing job with

17 engaging, you know, stakeholders across the

18 Commonwealth on our ESSA plan. You know, I shared

19 a little earlier, but I think there's a really

20 great opportunity to share, when we looked

21 specifically at four areas -- area of educator

22 preparation, educator effectiveness, assessment,

23 and accountability -- we start off with a full

24 group that came together, you know, a couple

25 hundred individuals, and then broke out into work 243

1 groups that was representative of all, you know,

2 different type of stakeholders, everything from

3 classroom educators, higher ed, administration, and

4 educational advocates.

5 After the recommendations were made by

6 those four work groups, we posted those

7 recommendations online. And so, we didn’t say

8 these were PDE recommendations, we just staffed the

9 process. We wanted this to be organic and a

10 movement by, you know, the greater education

11 community.

12 We then took those recommendations and

13 scheduled sessions across the Commonwealth. And

14 upwards of a thousand individuals participated in

15 those sessions and provided feedback. And

16 additional feedback was provided online, you know,

17 through review of that process. And we actually

18 continued to get, you know, feedback on a regular

19 basis.

20 Based on the feedback given by educational

21 stakeholders, you know, we’re going to pull

22 together a plan that we will present to the general

23 assembly and look to move forward, you know, with

24 our ESSA plan. You know, probably I can share with

25 you, like, some great examples shared. I mean, the 244

1 one I shared earlier is a big one, you know, trying

2 to find ways, you know, to decrease assessment by

3 25 percent, because educators are like, so, here’s

4 data that we need and we don’t need. You know,

5 parents and advocates said, here’s what I want to

6 know, what I don’t want to know, you know. In the

7 system of higher ed, re-envisioning how we prepare

8 teachers and spending more time actually preparing

9 in the classroom.

10 When we looked at school improvement, you

11 know, they shared, you know, using one measure, and

12 then there’s like five systems of turnaround that

13 you have to engage in. None of those fit me. And

14 how do we create a process that fits the local

15 community? Because we know that we can’t decouple

16 the needs of community, the needs of the school,

17 the geographic location from school improvement.

18 And the current system does that.

19 We say, we don’t care if you’re rural,

20 urban, or suburban, you’re going to do the same

21 thing. And, you know, here, you know, we have

22 schools that are saying, all right, you want me to

23 engage in this turnaround effort, but my kids don’t

24 eat or my kids need health care, my kids need -­

25 and by engaging in this process, we can better 245

1 define and look at, you know, the needs of the

2 individual students.

3 And then, you know, the last, which will

4 be much more intensive, you know, a discussion will

5 be educator effectiveness. So, we started, you

6 know, with the education chairmen, to talk -- to

7 map out the long-term discussions we need to have

8 around -- around educator effectiveness, but we’ve

9 started to engage accordingly.

10 So, you know, the field has been amazing,

11 you know, through this process. And, you know,

12 when you hear a thousand-plus people, you know,

13 kind of share with you these are our two to three

14 priorities in each one of these area, you know, you

15 get a really good sampling of what you need to do,

16 moving forward.

17 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you. And

18 I look forward to working with you.

19 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: For one

21 question, Marguerite Quinn.

22 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Taking you back to

23 higher education, okay?

24 We talked earlier, there’s mention of the

25 large amount of school debt that our kids come out 246

1 of school with. What I have found is that there

2 are times when a student has to stay an extra

3 semester because they cannot get into a class. So,

4 my question is going to have a couple -- don’t

5 answer it, because I need only one question mark at

6 the end.

7 Is the cap -- is there a cap on the amount

8 of -- or, apparently, there’s a cap on the amount

9 of students in a class. Is that a part of the

10 collective bargaining agreement, does it change per

11 discipline, and would you please look into this?

12 Because I have one constituent who

13 couldn’t -- really worked towards a double major

14 and had to take it as a major and a minor because

15 it would have meant another semester for one lousy

16 class that the professor said, huh-uh, I’m at

17 capacity. When the kid said, I’d look there and

18 I’d watch empty seats.

19 Thank you. There’s a question mark at the

20 end of that. Just one.

21 SECRETARY RIVERA: I -- I don’t know the

22 answer to your question. But I will definitely dig

23 deeply on that issue and we’ll forward it

24 accordingly.

25 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you very 247

1 much.

2 SECRETARY RIVERA: Absolutely.

3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative

4 Markosek.

5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you.

6 Thank you, Chairman.

7 First of all, let me just say that I saw

8 one of my -- we always introduce guests, and I saw

9 one of my colleagues here, Representative Ed

10 Neilson, and I looked over there and he left the

11 room. But I want all the members to tell him when

12 you see him that I did recognize him, please.

13 I also -- you know, I'm one of these

14 people that, in spite of my current job, sometimes

15 all these numbers really start to become a blur.

16 And seeing things put very nicely in a graph is the

17 way I like to see things.

18 And I would -- I know we've talked a lot

19 about some graphs and about the various funding for

20 education over the years and how much is pension

21 and how much is basic ed, et cetera, et cetera.

22 I would like to just alert everyone to the

23 education primer that our committee website puts

24 out, How Does Total PreK-to-12 Education Funding

25 Today Compare to Previous Years, and it's dated 248

1 February 2017. You can -- folks, if they go on

2 www.hacd -- House Appropriations Committee Democrat

3 -- .net, they can pull this very, very handy primer

4 up that has all kinds of education jobs, funds,

5 ARRA, pension, pension payments towards the

6 unfunded liability, comparison lines with other

7 years. It’s all right there.

8 So, I would say to folks, hacd.net, the

9 education primer, dated February 2017. And I want

10 to give my staff a lot of credit for putting that

11 together and providing that on our website.

12 So, I would suggest that all of the

13 members of the committee and anybody watching or

14 anybody here that’s interested, take a look at that

15 very simple map of education funding over the last

16 ten or fifteen years. And I think it’s all there.

17 So, with that, I want to thank all of you,

18 did a great job, and appreciate it a lot. And

19 we’ll see you during budget time. Thank.

20 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you, sir.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We probably

22 have a similar -- we do have a similar one on ours.

23 Might be a little more different than Chairman

24 Markosek’s formula, but ours is, I’m going to say,

25 more accurate. Just kidding. 249

1 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: You went

2 after the staff on that one.

3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Sorry about

4 that.

5 But, seriously, I wanted to cover a couple

6 topics. I don't know that I really have any

7 questions here.

8 Earlier we talked about lunches that was

9 brought up here today. That is one of the biggest

10 complaints I get from anybody who's visiting a

11 school, from workers, is the amount of

12 food that is thrown away every day in a cafeteria.

13 I think it's a policy we really have to look at, in

14 that it's not fair. You know, I've worked a day in

15 a school elementary cafeteria. I know what I've

16 seen. But I really do think we need to change it.

17 I mean, it's great to encourage kids to eat

18 nutritious, but when they're throwing it away,

19 that's not making kids eat nutrition.

20 We have to be more serious about how we

21 handle it. We can encourage kids. I think we

22 should educate kids about healthy eating. Those

23 kind of things are important. But to force

24 children or to even just throw food away is so

25 wasteful when we know we have children out there 250

1 who are going hungry. So, we have to find a better

2 way of -- better policy of adjusting some of that.

3 And some of that may be federal mandates. But if

4 that’s true, then we need to deal with federal

5 government in making sure that they understand what

6 they’re doing. And I’m sure, if it’s happening in

7 Pennsylvania, we’re not the only state. So, we

8 need to deal with that issue.

9 Mr. Secretary, the other thing comes down

10 to, and you and I have had a number of discussions,

11 I’ve met with a number of superintendents over the

12 last two years, prior to this, as being chairman of

13 the Appropriations Committee, I was Education

14 chairman. One of the things I really had

15 discovered as Education chairman, which has really

16 opened my eyes, has been most of our schools that

17 are in recovery are really because of mismanagement

18 by school districts, mostly the school boards.

19 When you look at the Reading School

20 District, for instance, the LIU came in and

21 balanced their budget, put them back in the black.

22 That demonstrated it’s not just a lack of dollars.

23 Because the new superintendent at Reading is doing,

24 I believe, a great job in moving the Reading School

25 District forward. So, it’s not about dollars in 251

1 that Reading School District. It’s about how you

2 manage the dollars you have.

3 York city is another perfect example of

4 mismanagement of dollars. York city bought cases

5 upon cases of stop watches, Hersheypark tickets,

6 that sat in the closet and expired and were never

7 used to give to the kids. And the stop watches

8 were somewhere in the neighborhood of total of -­

9 all the mismanagement of York High was eight

10 hundred thousand dollars. Eight hundred thousand

11 dollars in one school district mismanaged. And the

12 federal government actually came in and was part of

13 that audit.

14 So, what I see is that it isn’t about

15 dollars, as I said earlier in my opening statement.

16 It’s really about holding school boards accountable

17 for what they’re doing for our students.

18 You know, I hear a lot of finger pointing

19 at teachers. I hear finger pointing at parents.

20 And maybe they’re partly responsible sometimes.

21 But I think it’s time for us to look in the mirror

22 and look at the school boards and how they’re

23 running their school districts.

24 Nobody holds anybody accountable, other

25 than teachers and parents, who we keep yelling at 252

1 because they send their children, they don’t have

2 their kid do homework or whatever. And what I

3 always said is, if I owned a business, if my

4 business failed, it was Stan Saylor’s fault, not my

5 employees.

6 When are we going to get to the point that

7 we hold superintendents and school boards

8 accountable for their failure of their school

9 district, instead of pointing fingers at everybody

10 else?

11 So, I think it’s time for us to start

12 looking at performance management and budget

13 management in the school districts and holding

14 school districts accountable. Instead of saying,

15 oh, you know what, Chester Upland, we’re going to

16 give you twelve million dollars a year more every

17 year, even though you still are failing to meet the

18 worst charter schools in the state’s record of

19 testing. Money in Chester Upland has not helped

20 Chester Upland students. It’s only sentenced them

21 to a very bad future.

22 So, at some point, we, in Harrisburg, have

23 got to get the nerve to start holding school boards

24 accountable for mismanagement, and superintendents,

25 whether that means pulling the license or 253

1 certificate to be a superintendent or whether it

2 means that we find a way to remove bad school board

3 directors who continue to put our students at a

4 disadvantage.

5 I will continue — I’ll get off that

6 soapbox for a moment. The other thing is, we have

7 to face a reality as well. And I don’t like it,

8 because I’m a product of our state system and our

9 universities. And I’m very proud to have gone to

10 IUP. But the fact is what it is. This contract

11 with this union and college professors has put us

12 in a position, in my personal opinion, that we’re

13 going to have to close universities. Nobody likes

14 it because everybody who has a university in that

15 their system or anybody who graduated from one of

16 those fourteen universities doesn’t want to see

17 their university closed.

18 But when you’re paying professors and

19 you’re giving college professors free education for

20 their children -- something that no other workers

21 in Pennsylvania get; teachers don’t get free

22 education for their children -- so, we’re giving

23 college professors free education. You know, I -­

24 you know, if I was a science teacher at one of our

25 state universities, I’d understand I need more time 254

1 to do research to promote what I'm doing. I

2 haven't figured out what English teacher does in

3 research that they need to only work sixteen hours

4 a week for a hundred-and-some-thousand-dollar

5 salary.

6 We have to face it. Reality is setting in

7 in this state. We have to decide where our real

8 priorities are. And when we know — and talking

9 with Chairwoman Shapiro and also Chancellor Brogan,

10 the state system is not meeting the job of

11 employers in Pennsylvania, they're just not,

12 graduating many students who can't even find a job

13 in the field that they're graduating in.

14 Mr. Secretary, you and I -- I have told

15 you this before, so this isn't news to you -- I

16 thought you did an outstanding job as

17 superintendent of Lancaster City School District.

18 I don't pay many compliments sometimes. But

19 Lancaster School District's a perfect example of

20 how management makes a difference. You dealt with,

21 the current superintendent of Lancaster City School

22 District has dealt with probably a higher

23 percentage of Latino population than any other

24 school district in the state. I might be slightly

25 off there, but it's one of the highest, if not the 255

1 highest. And your kids coming out of Lancaster

2 city are doing an outstanding job.

3 Yet, we have other school districts who

4 face less problems than Lancaster faces who aren't

5 doing such a great job. Chester Upland, who's one

6 of the highest funded state-funded school districts

7 in the state and one of the worst.

8 So, at some point in time, we have got to

9 find the courage to quit saying we're going to give

10 more money to mismanaged school districts and say,

11 you know what, it's time to make a change. And

12 those changes are things that I don't think any of

13 us want to see done, but we have to do it. The

14 tough choice is there.

15 So, I'd say thank you for the job you've

16 been trying to do as Education secretary, but I do

17 think we have to knuckle down here in the general

18 assembly and reward performances and not reward

19 failure. And we have far too many failures.

20 I still stay our public education system

21 and our universities in the state are the finest of

22 any state in this country. But we still have

23 problems. But we can't keep passing that problem

24 on year to year and not making the tough decisions,

25 whether it's a public school or it's a higher 256

1 education institution, to not make those

2 corrections. Because we just can’t continue

3 throwing money down a hole and not getting results.

4 Our students, our taxpayers deserve better.

5 So, thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your

6 coming today and your patience, and all the deputy

7 secretaries as well.

8 SECRETARY RIVERA: Thank you,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 And if I could just acknowledge staff, who

11 did an amazing job preparing me and us and the

12 documents shared. And they work tirelessly every

13 day to support the children of the Commonwealth.

14 So, thank you to all for all you do each

15 and every day for our kids. Thank you.

16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you.

17 With that, we will reconvene tomorrow

18 morning at 10 o ’clock for the Department of Human

19 Services.

20 (Whereupon, the hearing concluded at

21 3:40 p.m.)

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1 REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE

2 I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing is a true and

3 accurate transcript, to the best of my ability,

4 produced from audio on the said proceedings.

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7 BRENDA J. PARDUN, RPR 8 Court Reporter Notary Public 9

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