1 1 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 2 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EDUCATION COMMITTEE 3

4 IRVIS OFFICE BUILDING ROOM G-50 5 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

6 HOUSE BILL 704 7 SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING PUBLIC HEARING 8

9 WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009 9:02 A.M. 10

11 BEFORE:

12 HONORABLE JAMES R. ROEBUCK, JR., MAJ. CHAIRMAN HONORABLE KEN SMITH 13 HONORABLE LAWRENCE H. CURRY HONORABLE BARBARA MCILVAINE SMITH 14 HONORABLE JOHN T. YUDICHAK HONORABLE MIKE CARROLL 15 HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE RICHARD T. GRUCELA 16 HONORABLE PATRICK J. HARKINS HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI 17 HONORABLE JOHN E. PALLONE HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY 18 HONORABLE ROSITA C. YOUNGBLOOD HONORABLE PAUL I. CLYMER, MIN. CHAIRMAN 19 HONORABLE WILL TALLMAN HONORABLE BERNIE O'NEILL 20 HONORABLE THOMAS J. QUIGLEY HONORABLE KATHY L. RAPP 21 HONORABLE MIKE FLECK HONORABLE DARYL D. METCALFE 22 HONORABLE DUANE MILNE HONORABLE MIKE REESE 23 ______

24 BRENDA J. PARDUN P. O. BOX 278 25 MAYTOWN, PA 17550 717-426-1596 PHONE/FAX 2 1 ALSO PRESENT:

2 HONORABLE MICHAEL STURLA

3 SONIA TERECH, LEGISLATIVE AIDE (D) ERIN DIXON, RESEARCH ANALYST (D) 4 ALYSSA ACKERMAN, INTERN (D) PATTY WHITE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) 5 ASHLEY DEMAURO, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) JOY ANDERSON, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) 6 DUSTIN GINGRICH, RESEARCH ANALYST (R)

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8 BRENDA J. PARDUN REPORTER - NOTARY PUBLIC 9

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25 3 1 INDEX

2 NAME PAGE

3 OPENING REMARKS 4 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK 4 HONORABLE MICHAEL STURLA 6 5 BARUCH KINTISCH 11 6 DIRECTOR OF POLICY ADVOCACY EDUCATION LAW CENTER 7 KENNETH OAKES 16 8 ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SPECIAL EDUCATION ARCADIA UNIVERSITY 9 BOARD MEMBER AND CHAIR EDUCATION & EARLY CHILDHOOD SUBCOMMITTEE 10 THE ARC OF PENNSYLVANIA

11 SANDRA L. ZELNO 17 SCHOOL REFORM ASSOCIATE 12 EDUCATION LAW CENTER

13 ROY GALLOWAY 19 CHILDREN'S POLICY COORDINATOR 14 STAFF ATTORNEY DISABILITY RIGHTS NETWORK OF PENNSYLVANIA 15 DR. THOMAS NEUVILLE 21 16 PROFESSOR, SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY 17 DR. SHERRI L. SMITH 27 18 SUPERINTENDENT LOWER DAUPHIN SCHOOL DISTRICT 19 JANE CARROLL 71 20 SENIOR FELLOW EDUCATION POLICY AND LEADERSHIP CENTER 21 PA SCHOOL FUNDING CAMPAIGN

22 LISA LANDIS 77 GOVERNMENT RELATIONS SPECIALIST 23 PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL BOARD ASSOCIATION

24 JANIS RISCH 82 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 25 GOOD SCHOOLS PA 4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Good morning. I'd

3 like to call the House Education Committee

4 meeting to order.

5 Today's hearing, mini hearing,

6 concerns House Bill 704, Representative

7 Sturla's legislation that would establish a

8 new funding formula for state special-

9 education funding.

10 I'd like to begin by asking that the

11 members of the committee who are here would

12 introduce themselves. I'm Jim Roebuck,

13 chairman of the committee, from Philadelphia.

14 And if we begin -- why don't we begin

15 at this end.

16 REPRESENTATIVE HARKINS: Good

17 morning, everyone. Pat Harkins, Erie.

18 REPRESENTATIVE CONKLIN: Scott

19 Conklin, Centre County.

20 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH: Barb

21 McIlvaine Smith, Chester County.

22 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Paul Clymer,

23 chair of the Republican House Committee, from

24 Bucks County.

25 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Representative 5 1 Rapp, Warren, Forest, and Mckean Counties.

2 REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Ken Smith,

3 Lackawanna County.

4 REPRESENTATIVE YUDICHAK: Good

5 morning. John Yudichak, Luzerne County.

6 REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY:

7 Representative Tom Quigley, from Montgomery

8 County.

9 REPRESENTATIVE REESE: Mike Reese,

10 from Westmoreland and Fayette County.

11 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: Good

12 morning. Bernie O'Neill, from Bucks County.

13 REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Good

14 morning. Will Tallman, Adams and York

15 Counties.

16 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Good

17 morning. Jake Wheatley, from Allegheny

18 County, Pittsburgh.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Duane Milne,

20 Chester County.

21 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

22 Like to begin by asking -- the format

23 of the meeting is that we will have an initial

24 presentation by representative Sturla, and

25 then we'll have two separate panels that will 6 1 give us brief, brief, brief description of the

2 legislation, and we will then go into

3 questions and answers.

4 I'm being advised that Representative

5 Sturla is delayed. We will begin with the

6 first panel.

7 If they will come forward and

8 introduce themselves. And give their

9 presentation.

10 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Wait a

11 second, Representative Sturla's here.

12 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: And you also,

13 Mark, you want to, as you go by, introduce

14 yourself.

15 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Sure.

16 Representative Mark Longietti, from Mercer

17 County.

18 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

19 Representative Sturla, will give us a

20 few opening comments on this legislation.

21 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: Thank you.

22 And I apologize for being late. It seemed

23 like traffic today was running an obstacle

24 course for me.

25 Thanks for the opportunity to be able 7 1 to testify about House Bill 705 (sic), and I

2 want to thank you, in particular,

3 Representative McIlvaine Smith and Chairman

4 Roebuck for making this a priority, moving

5 this special-education funding formula

6 forward.

7 Before I begin, there's information

8 in your binders. Obviously, you can all look

9 at that. But I want to go back, about

10 eighteen and a half years, when I first became

11 a legislator here. At that point in time, the

12 way we funded special education in the state

13 of Pennsylvania was what was called an "excess

14 cost system." School districts would

15 calculate how much they had spent on a

16 special-ed student, and anything that was in

17 excess of the cost of educating a regular-ed

18 student, they kept track of that, sent a bill

19 to the state, and the state would reimburse

20 them in full for any excess costs.

21 At the time, in 1990, when I got

22 here, that was the fastest growing line item

23 in the budget. And, quite frankly, many

24 school districts were abusing that system.

25 They would get a special-needs student and 8 1 somebody would say, Well, gosh, it's going to

2 be, you know, difficult to have my special-

3 needs student ride on the bus with somebody

4 else. And they'd say, No problem. We'll buy

5 you a van. And they would buy a van, and

6 they'd transport the student. And then the

7 other part of the day they'd use it to take

8 kids to track meets or they would do something

9 else, but every excess cost that they could

10 think of got pushed into the special-ed line

11 item.

12 So, obviously, we needed to curb that

13 abuse. And we did that through a formula

14 developed back then that recognized the fact

15 that the state's special-needs population was,

16 on average, about 16 percent for years prior

17 to that. And so we said, Well, that seems

18 pretty consistent. Let's just say that it's

19 going to be 16 percent, and we'll take a

20 school district's population times 16 percent,

21 that is how many special-needs students they

22 have -- they will have, and what we'll do is,

23 we'll determine how much we're going to spend

24 on special education. And we'll pick a number

25 out of the air each year, depending on how 9 1 much we think we can afford. We'll divide it

2 by the total number of students in the state

3 of Pennsylvania times 16 percent, and that's

4 what we'll push out to each individual

5 district.

6 That formula, because there was

7 enough money in the budget at that point in

8 time, seemed like an okay system. But it has

9 grown to be an unfair system, and it gets more

10 unfair every year. There are some school

11 districts that have an 8 percent special-needs

12 population, and other school districts that

13 have a 28 percent special-needs population.

14 Each one of those districts is getting

15 reimbursed like they have a 16 percent

16 special-needs population.

17 So if you happen to be one of those

18 lucky school districts that have a low

19 incidence of special-needs students for

20 whatever the reason, this special-ed funding

21 formula seems like an okay deal. You're

22 getting reimbursed at twice the rate that you

23 should.

24 If you have 28 percent special-needs

25 students, it doesn't look like such a very 10 1 good deal. And, in fact, for those students

2 in those school districts, it's really a short

3 changing of their needs as well as the

4 regular-ed students, where the school district

5 robs dollars from to help to pay for the

6 special-needs students.

7 So, with that, we can get into some

8 of the details of the panels that you'll have

9 coming before you. They can probably do a

10 much better job of that than I can, and rather

11 than me doing it and having them say, well,

12 let me explain how it really works, I'll defer

13 to them for some of the details on this.

14 And these panels that you're going to

15 see -- I mean, I have eighteen years'

16 experience trying to deal with special eds --

17 special-ed needs, they have a hundred eighty

18 years dealing with special-ed needs combined.

19 So there is -- the formula, though,

20 that is proposed in House Bill 704 is based on

21 a costing out study that was done last year to

22 determine what it actually costs to educate a

23 special-needs student. You take those actual

24 costs, you take them times the number of -- of

25 students that are actually in a school 11 1 district, and then you take that times the

2 multiplier that we know is the additional cost

3 necessary to educate special-needs students,

4 plus then factor in some local efforts, and,

5 you know, various things that we do in

6 formulas, similar to the basic-ed formula that

7 was developed a few years ago. And that's

8 where this one stands.

9 So, I'm ready to answer any questions

10 anybody has, but, you know, some of the

11 technical ones you may want to wait for the

12 panel. You can probably get a better answer

13 out of them.

14 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I think what I'd

15 like to do, Representative, is have you -- go

16 right to the panel, and you'll be here as we

17 go through the panels.

18 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: Okay. Thank

19 you.

20 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

21 Call up the first panel, and ask that

22 they introduce themselves as they make their

23 presentation.

24 MR. KINTISCH: Good morning. Want to

25 thank both the Chairman and members of the 12 1 committee for giving us this opportunity to

2 talk about this very, very, very important

3 issue.

4 Because we are talking about students

5 with disabilities, and because there are

6 individuals with disabilities that are here in

7 the room, we will -- we'll be very quick in

8 doing this PowerPoint presentation for you.

9 We think it's an excellent panel here with

10 great experience and knowledge, but we will

11 follow proper disability protocol and actually

12 read the slides that will be before you. We

13 will do it very quickly, but that will allow

14 everyone who may have a disability to

15 participate equally.

16 The members of the panel are Ken

17 Oakes, who is with the Arc of Pennsylvania

18 from Harrisburg; Sandy Zelno, who is with the

19 Education Law Center in our Pittsburgh office;

20 Sherri Smith, who is the superintendent of the

21 Lower Dauphin School District from

22 Hummelstown; Dr. Thomas Neuville is next to

23 her, from Millersville University; and then

24 Roy Galloway is at the end, from the

25 Disability Rights Network in Harrisburg. 13 1 The PowerPoint here is in your

2 binder, and the very last page of the

3 PowerPoint has all of the contact information

4 for the members of the panel.

5 To give an overview of the

6 presentation, there are four simple points for

7 common agreement here. School districts

8 should provide students with disabilities with

9 the basics supports and services needed to

10 succeed in school.

11 Students have a legal right to this

12 kind of quality special education and are

13 academically and functionally more successful

14 when they receive it. But it costs more to

15 educate, effectively, children with

16 disabilities than other students. And the

17 Commonwealth definitely benefits when all

18 students are educated and prepared for

19 meaningful employment, higher education, and

20 self-sufficiency. And that's all the good

21 stuff.

22 There's a "but" coming. And

23 unfortunately, most districts do not have the

24 basic resources needed to provide a quality

25 education for students with disabilities. I 14 1 know that you hear this from your own school

2 officials in your districts.

3 A recent study found that special

4 education is underfunded in about four hundred

5 school districts. And districts that are able

6 to provide more funding for special education

7 have better student outcomes, but a child's

8 zip code should not determine the quality of

9 their education. Concrete changes in patient

10 special-education funding and accountability

11 system are needed to fulfill Pennsylvania's

12 commitment to these issues.

13 So four recommendations. The funding

14 system for special education can be improved

15 to provide adequate resources using a needs-

16 based formula and with strengthened

17 accountability. These reforms should produce

18 significant gains, allowing schools to provide

19 essential supports and services and giving

20 children a chance for productive life. And

21 that's why House Bill 704, if you can get the

22 date referenced in that number is Independence

23 Day for children with disabilities.

24 The bill contains a new formula that

25 counts students, meets school needs, fixes the 15 1 contingency fund for costly students, and

2 strengthens accountability for effective

3 investments. This proposed formula can stand

4 on its own as a separate line item in the

5 budget, or it could eventually be merged into

6 the main education formula for basic

7 education.

8 So why is this the right time for

9 fixing the formula? If we don't fix it now,

10 the upward pressures on local property taxes

11 will continue. The basic-education funding

12 and accountability reforms that you adopted in

13 2008 are incomplete without similar reforms

14 being made for special education.

15 Special ed now is kind of like a hole

16 in the bucket. We have accountability and

17 predictability for basic education, but not

18 for special education without House Bill 704.

19 The federal stimulus dollars for

20 special education make it possible to

21 implement these changes in the formula and in

22 the accountability system without incurring

23 excessive obligations in the year following

24 the stimulus.

25 The cost to the state can be zero 16 1 now, and surprisingly manageable in the

2 future.

3 So, next is Ken Oakes. And I realize

4 I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?

5 Baruch Kintisch, with the Education Law Center

6 in our Philadelphia office.

7 MR. OAKES: I'm just going to give a

8 quick overview of what special ed is.

9 Students are eligible for special education

10 when they have one of the specific

11 disabilities that are outlined in state and

12 federal regulations and are in need of

13 specially designed instruction that can't be

14 implemented in the general education setting

15 by regular-ed teachers.

16 In training teachers, we stress that

17 special education is a service, not a place.

18 And that special-education services should be

19 offered throughout the entire school, not just

20 in a special-ed classroom.

21 Most eligible kids in Pennsylvania

22 who receive special education are kids with

23 what we call mild disabilities. And research

24 shows that nearly all kids with disabilities

25 will benefit from instruction in the general 17 1 education setting.

2 Our own state code, state education

3 code, tells us that children with disabilities

4 shall -- and you use the word "shall" -- have

5 a free and appropriate public education in the

6 least restrictive environment. And it tells

7 us that improving results for student with

8 disabilities is essential to ensuring the

9 quality of opportunity, full participation,

10 independent living, and economic self-

11 sufficiency.

12 State and federal law establishes the

13 basic programs and practices for special

14 education and for students with disabilities.

15 Children with disabilities deserve a quality

16 education with appropriate services and

17 supports, accommodations, and highly skilled

18 teachers.

19 MR. KINTISCH: And Sandy will now

20 take us through the next set of the

21 PowerPoint.

22 MS. ZELNO: The background on the

23 excess cost system was given by Representative

24 Sturla earlier, stating that prior to the

25 '91-'92 school year, the state reimbursed 18 1 school districts for 100 percent of the excess

2 costs of special education above the average

3 cost per pupil for basic education.

4 At that time, two-thirds of all

5 students with disabilities were educated by an

6 intermediate unit. The State paid IUs to

7 operate these programs separately from the

8 excess costs system used for school

9 districts.

10 Then there was a switch to a census

11 system. After '91-'92, the state made this

12 transition. There are two parts to the census

13 system: An overall cap on the annual state

14 spending for special education and a division

15 between districts of overall state funding

16 based on relative student population.

17 In recent years, the state has simply

18 assumed that 16 percent of all students need

19 special-education services.

20 MR. KINTISCH: Now, in the last

21 fiscal year of '08-'09 that we're just

22 finishing out, this was the formula used, the

23 census-based approach. I won't go through all

24 of this, but this is language right from the

25 budget that is still in effect for this year. 19 1 The base supplement was just dividing up the

2 capped state funding level by 16 percent of

3 all students in each district. There was an

4 inflation index applied, and then making sure

5 that all districts had a minimum increase of

6 at least 2 percent.

7 And Roy will now talk about the

8 status of special education in Pennsylvania.

9 MR. GALLOWAY: Students with

10 disabilities in Pennsylvania have different

11 educational opportunities and different

12 outcomes than other students, which is loosely

13 displayed in the table.

14 These are individuals who have real

15 needs based on their disabilities, who are

16 affected when their education is underfunded.

17 I understand this very well as a parent of a

18 four-and-a-half year old with disabilities,

19 because my wife and I have fought many battles

20 trying to get services on her behalf. And I

21 also understand this because I speak with

22 parents across this commonwealth on a daily

23 basis who are fighting the school districts to

24 provide services that their children honestly

25 really deserves and are entitled to. 20 1 Money matters to the quality of

2 special education that a school district can

3 afford to provide. The wealthiest school

4 districts can afford to spend more on special

5 education, and the student outcomes are much

6 better in these districts than in the poorest

7 districts, which is shown in the table.

8 Pennsylvania's state share of funding

9 for special education is low. Local school

10 districts pay most of the costs, and this puts

11 pressure on local property taxes in many

12 communities.

13 I just want to highlight, the table

14 shows that Pennsylvania's currently funding

15 special education, contributing 32 percent of

16 total expenditures, which is really, really

17 low.

18 State funding for special education

19 has fallen behind state funding for basic

20 education, receiving much smaller annual

21 increases in recent years.

22 House Bill 704 will increase the

23 total state funding for special education by

24 24 percent in gradual increments over at least

25 six years. This covers about half of the 21 1 total funding gap for special education, with

2 local districts also picking up their share.

3 About four hundred school districts

4 will see increases above a hold-harmless

5 level. The average annual increase per

6 district is 4.9 percent, bringing all

7 districts to an adequate level of funding over

8 time.

9 MR. KINTISCH: And Dr. Neuville will

10 lead us through the next section.

11 DR. NEUVILLE: Good morning.

12 As a professional in teacher

13 preparation and as a parent who has spent

14 hours in IEP meetings, I thank you for your

15 attention to this. And when Baruch said it

16 was really about strengthening accountability

17 and predictability, that just brings joy to my

18 heart.

19 And having said that, so what is

20 special education -- or why does special

21 education cost more than basic education?

22 Improving education for students with

23 disabilities is vital to their self-

24 sufficiency and full participation in society,

25 underscore "full participation." 22 1 Education is an essential tool for

2 creating a productive citizenry and for

3 enabling all children, regardless of either

4 their fiscal or physiological circumstances,

5 to reach their potential.

6 And to meet these priorities, state

7 and federal law have required many aspects of

8 special education that, hopefully, this bill

9 will heighten.

10 Emotional, intellectual, or physical

11 disabilities can directly impact a child's

12 capacity to achieve learning goals and

13 milestones in the same manner as students

14 without disabilities. The essence there is

15 that they can and will achieve it. It is just

16 a different manner.

17 This requires additional time,

18 equipment, technology, materials, personnel,

19 and the will to put the effort in. Children

20 without disabilities may not need these extra

21 services.

22 So costs have increased over the

23 years, as science has progressed,

24 identification, and treatment have improved,

25 and -- which has created shortages of trained 23 1 professionals over time. Science has also

2 made strides in recognizing and supporting a

3 much wider range of disabilities, such as

4 autism spectrum, before perhaps they just

5 failed, et cetera, but now we recognize.

6 As a result, special-education

7 enrollment has increased in Pennsylvania by

8 more than twenty-five thousand since 2002,

9 reaching a total of nearly two hundred eighty

10 thousand students.

11 The failure to provide special-

12 education resources can short change students

13 with and without disability. This is more

14 true than the statement indicates. Faced with

15 chronically insufficient funding for special

16 education, resources become stretched thin,

17 and some school officials are forced to spread

18 insufficient resources across all programs.

19 Underfunding special education can

20 thus diminish the quality of programs for all

21 students while marginalizing students with

22 disabilities, underline that "marginalizing"

23 that the money not spent up front causes a

24 life of marginalization, and such deficiencies

25 need to be addressed by this state. 24 1 MR. KINTISCH: We'll now go back to

2 Ken for the next section.

3 MR. OAKES: In 2007, the costing-out

4 study included three key elements: Base cost

5 for educating a typical student; cost weights

6 for educating students with special needs,

7 including students in poverty, English

8 language learners, and mentally gifted; and

9 additional cost factors between our five

10 hundred school districts, such as enrollment

11 trends, district size, and regional cost of

12 living.

13 Last year the costing-out study led

14 to the adoption of the new funding for basic

15 education in Pennsylvania. The base costs was

16 set at $8,355 per student. Cost weights were

17 applied for poverty and English language

18 learners, and adjustments were made for

19 district size and regional cost of living

20 differences. But, unfortunately, special-

21 education students were not included in the

22 new system of funding reform.

23 In 2007, the costing-out study

24 calculated a 1.3 added cost weight for

25 students with disabilities. This represents 25 1 an average across all disabilities categories

2 and all levels of support. The 1.3 added cost

3 provides for the basic tools and resources

4 needed by special educators to ensure that

5 students with disability can meet state

6 mandated academic standards.

7 Again in 2007, the study was recently

8 updated using the same 2006-'07 data. This

9 study shows that three hundred ninety-one

10 districts may face a shortfall in spending for

11 special education. And Pennsylvania's funding

12 gap for special education is nearing $380

13 million dollars.

14 Adopting special-education funding

15 reform will assist districts in meeting the

16 basic needs of students with disabilities.

17 MR. KINTISCH: And Sandy will take us

18 through the next section.

19 MS. ZELNO: So why is House Bill 704

20 a good solution to the funding problems for

21 special education? House Bill 704 is based on

22 the costing-out study commissioned by the

23 general assembly. It's a bill that uses the

24 variables and weights recommended in the

25 study. It is consistent with the basic- 26 1 education funding reforms adopted by the

2 general assembly in 2008. It's formula can be

3 adopted as a separate line item in the budget

4 or can be merged with the main education

5 formula.

6 Some people would say that this is

7 special education boldly going where everyone

8 else has gone before.

9 House Bill 704 counts real students,

10 rather than assuming every district has the

11 same percentages of students with

12 disabilities. It fairly divides costs between

13 state and local districts. It directs more

14 new funding to the underfunded districts with

15 the highest local costs, the highest poverty,

16 and the highest property taxes. Four hundred

17 total school districts are currently

18 underfunded.

19 Federal stimulus dollars for special

20 education make it possible to phase-in house

21 bill 704 over at least six years without

22 incurring extensive obligations in the year

23 following the stimulus.

24 House Bill 704 fixes the contingency

25 fund, placing it in statute, providing 27 1 legislative oversight, and requiring

2 department reports. The fund is necessary

3 because no formula can anticipate the

4 extraordinary expenses needed for the most

5 costly students.

6 House Bill 704 provides improved

7 accountability for special education and the

8 expenditures. The bill incorporates and

9 strengthens the current accountability system,

10 which already requires districts to implement

11 three-year plans for special education.

12 MR. KINTISCH: And Dr. Smith will

13 lead us through this next section.

14 DR. SMITH: Good morning, everyone.

15 I've been asked to talk about how

16 added resources will assist districts to

17 improve special education in the districts.

18 And I just want to say, as superintendent of

19 schools, providing special-education services

20 truly is one of the most vulnerable parts of

21 our budgets because of the specific needs of

22 students that move into your district and how

23 to incorporate and meet their needs in our

24 yearly budgets.

25 But how will those resources be used? 28 1 First of all, through personnel, increased

2 support for teachers to improve instruction

3 for students with disabilities in the regular

4 classroom; enhanced capacity to deliver the

5 specialized services of psychologists,

6 behavioral specialists, assistive technology

7 specialists, physical and occupational

8 therapists, literacy specialists and others,

9 many times which are very difficult to find,

10 and because of their specialized training,

11 bring additional cost to bring them to our

12 districts.

13 Professional and training. Staff

14 training is needed not just for special-

15 education teachers but for all teachers

16 providing instruction in inclusive classrooms

17 to meet the needs of our students with

18 disabilities. Also, training is needed for

19 our classroom aides and paraprofessionals and

20 educators to ensure that we're educating these

21 students.

22 Assistive technology devices and

23 services and materials. Assistive technology

24 is defined by the federal law IDEA as any item

25 used to increase, maintain, or improve 29 1 functional capability of a child with a

2 disability. Schools must help to access the

3 technology needs of students, select the

4 equipment, and support its effective use in

5 the classrooms. Without enough resources for

6 these appropriate technologies, students with

7 disabilities often are unable to fully

8 participate in the learning process.

9 Specialized programs. There a

10 variety of school-based programs that have

11 been found to be effective in improving the

12 performance of students with disabilities,

13 again bringing additional dollars. Schools --

14 summer school and after-school programs,

15 expanded transition service programs, early

16 intervention services, school-wide positive

17 behavior support programs.

18 So what benefits can be expected from

19 adding these special-education investments?

20 First of all, adequate funding allows for

21 schools to provide what the law requires us to

22 provide; improved identification, evaluation,

23 and intervention services; improved ability to

24 develop and implement individualized plans for

25 students; and hopefully reduced dropout rates 30 1 and better academic outcomes to our special-

2 needs students so that they can lead to

3 reducing their long-term societal costs and

4 social services needs post-high school.

5 Benefits to our teachers and students

6 would allow more highly qualified school and

7 district staff; improved job satisfaction

8 without a huge caseload; and reduced teacher

9 turnover in these areas.

10 Benefits to our students, all of our

11 students, is stronger education programs for

12 all of them; healthier school and classroom

13 cultures; and greater appreciation and

14 understanding of the differences between all

15 of our students.

16 And then, most importantly, our

17 benefits to students eligible for special

18 education and their families is effective

19 inclusion of students with disabilities in the

20 regular classrooms with the appropriate

21 resources; improved tailoring of services to

22 meet student needs; more effective parent

23 involvement; higher academic performance; and

24 greater employability, post-secondary success,

25 capacity for self-sufficiency and success in 31 1 life.

2 MR. KINTISCH: So we'll reach our

3 conclusion and be happy to answer your

4 questions.

5 If I could just emphasize the

6 experience and the wisdom here on the panel.

7 The Education Law Center, of course, started

8 thirty years ago, filing the first lawsuits to

9 create special-education laws that exist these

10 days, and we still help many, many families

11 with their special-education issues every day,

12 every week, every month, every year.

13 The Disability Rights Network, of

14 course, was leading in that litigation, along

15 with the Arc of Pennsylvania, and those two

16 organizations continue to serve as advocates

17 for families and work directly in schools in a

18 collaborative way.

19 Dr. Smith, as a superintendent, can

20 speak for school administrators across the

21 state, from these experiences. And

22 Dr. Neuville is teaching our future teachers

23 at Millersville, and with his colleagues

24 across the state in our education schools and

25 need to know this going into the school 32 1 districts where they have appropriate

2 financial support in order do their jobs.

3 If I could then conclude our

4 presentation, and we appreciate your attention

5 and consideration for this.

6 This bill, House Bill 704, is

7 extremely important, but it is a very tightly

8 focused bill. It doesn't encompass

9 everything. It doesn't address charter

10 schools, approved private schools, gifted

11 programs, schools for the deaf and blind.

12 Those are other line items in the budget.

13 This is a tightly focused bill just

14 on the special-education line item in the

15 budget and the accountability systems that go

16 along with that.

17 So, the special-education system and

18 the funding system in the state is now

19 broken. Students with disabilities are left

20 out of the education funding reforms that you

21 adopted in 2008. Special education has been

22 an underfunded area for years, and the state

23 should act now to address these problems.

24 House Bill 704 provides an excellent

25 opportunity to adopt this new formula and to 33 1 strengthen the accountability system. And if

2 we could emphasize that funding reforms and

3 accountability must go hand in hand.

4 The federal stimulus resources that

5 are available make this possible even during

6 these difficult times.

7 We thank you very much for caring

8 about students with disabilities, adopting

9 this bill promptly and paving the way to a

10 better future and an independence day for our

11 most vulnerable children.

12 And, Mr. Chairman, if you wanted us

13 to, we can answer any questions.

14 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you. We're

15 going to go to questions. Before we do that,

16 I want to ask that the members of the

17 committee who have come in after our initial

18 introductions would introduce themselves.

19 REPRESENTATIVE CURRY: Lawrence

20 Curry, eastern Montgomery County.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GRUCELA: Rich

22 Grucela, from Northampton County.

23 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNGBLOOD: Rosita

24 Youngblood, Philadelphia County.

25 REPRESENTATIVE METCALFE: 34 1 Representative Daryl Metcalfe, from Butler

2 County.

3 REPRESENTATIVE FLECK: Mike Fleck,

4 Blair, Huntingdon, and Mifflin Counties.

5 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Okay. Thank you.

6 We will go to questions.

7 Representative Clymer, you want to.

8 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Well, good

9 morning, everyone, and thank you for joining

10 us today.

11 Do you have information -- and I

12 might have missed this, I don't know -- do you

13 have information from other states that have a

14 similar education -- special-education funding

15 mechanism? And if you do, do you know what

16 states they are?

17 MR. KINTISCH: Sure. I think that I

18 can respond to that. If I can call my

19 colleague up for just a brief assistance with

20 this, David Lapp.

21 We have worked for months researching

22 the funding systems in other states. I think

23 we can safely say, based on the research, that

24 many other states are moving away from census-

25 based approaches and moving towards needs- 35 1 based formula, such as are in House Bill 704.

2 This is the way most states are going, and

3 there's -- the largest number of states have

4 this kind of formula that is recommended in

5 House Bill 704.

6 And, David, if you can speak for just

7 a minute about the main conclusions that you

8 found, using your research about other

9 states.

10 MR. LAPP: Hi. There's been sort of

11 four themes that I've seen, as I've done a lot

12 of research into how other states have been

13 handling special education funding. The main

14 theme that I see is sort of a seeking between

15 balance -- between accuracy and simplicity or

16 efficiency.

17 Pennsylvania's current system, of

18 course, is very simple. We simply count the

19 total number of students and divide -- and

20 added by -- multiply it by 16 percent. It is

21 also the problem that it's inaccurate, as

22 you've heard also.

23 A number of states have, as Baruch

24 mentioned, been changing their systems to try

25 and balance between accuracy and simplicity. 36 1 Some examples, Maryland and New York, some of

2 our neighbors, have moved to a single-weighted

3 system, which is very closely modeled after

4 what we would like to do with this bill.

5 The counter to that are some of our

6 other neighbors, a place like Delaware and

7 some other states in this example that are not

8 neighbors, but South Carolina and Texas do

9 this as well, where they try and measure the

10 exact number of services that state -- that

11 students are trying to get. So they fill out

12 a very complicated matrix for each student and

13 try and determine exactly how much services

14 each individual student gets. So that's one

15 theme.

16 Another theme that I've seen is sort

17 of an ubiquity of the contingency fund. Every

18 state sort of has a contingency fund. That

19 seems very important throughout those states.

20 But what I have not seen is a state that has

21 the same level of accountability that's

22 provided in HB 704. That's something that

23 states simply don't have and seems to be a new

24 thing.

25 One last theme I would just mention 37 1 is that there's been incredible change. The

2 last big study that was done on special-

3 education finance was done by an expert that

4 has spoken a lot with the stimulus, Tom

5 Parrish. And that was done in 2003.

6 His big study, so much has changed

7 already in the last five years from when that

8 was done. That change has lead to significant

9 unpredictability. That unpredictability has

10 been difficult for districts as they try and

11 plan their budgets in the -- for the future.

12 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Just one

13 quick follow-up.

14 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: And can I just

15 make certain that, for the record, we have him

16 clearly identified.

17 MR. KINTISCH: This is David Lapp

18 from the Education Law Center.

19 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Just a quick

20 follow-up then. Can you tell me which of

21 these states have implemented this separate

22 basic education and separated education

23 funding formula, because that's what we're

24 looking at here? So --

25 MR. KINTISCH: David, I guess I could 38 1 respond.

2 Many other states, in fact, most

3 other states have separate funding formulas.

4 They have a separate funding formula for

5 special education and then a separate formula

6 for basic education or their regular-education

7 programs. The way that I believe

8 Representative Sturla and the other sponsors

9 of the bill have crafted House Bill 704 would

10 allow it to either stand alone as an

11 independent formula, or to be merged in at

12 some point, either this year or in another

13 year, with the basic-education formula that

14 you adopted in 2008.

15 So that it -- the formula recommended

16 in House Bill 704 is very flexible in that

17 way. It could be used for either way.

18 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: So we can

19 look at, like, the states of New York and

20 Maryland and Delaware and they would give us

21 some role model as to how they have used the

22 breakdown, the separation of the formulas

23 between basic education and special

24 education. Would that be a correct

25 assessment? 39 1 MR. KINTISCH: Yeah. That is

2 correct. And David's done a very

3 comprehensive spreadsheet analyzing other

4 states, which is either up on the Education

5 Law Center's website or will be up there, and

6 we can make sure that the committee staff can

7 circulate that. It could be helpful to

8 members.

9 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Thank you,

10 Mr. Chairman.

11 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

12 I want to go then to Representative

13 McIlvaine Smith.

14 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

15 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

16 I'd like to ask how students are

17 doing academically, students with

18 disabilities, how are they doing academically

19 in our public school system now?

20 MR. KINTISCH: Dr. Smith, would you

21 like to respond?

22 DR. SMITH: As a past special-ed

23 teacher and one who has embraced the needs of

24 our special-needs students their entire life,

25 I think that truly there are many good things 40 1 happening in schools these days to try to

2 assist our special-needs students and their

3 needs.

4 However, as we incorporate them back

5 into the classrooms with inclusion, it

6 actually requires more staff sometimes than

7 less staff to make sure that that happens, and

8 happens well, for those students

9 academically.

10 I think if you look at our state

11 results on PSSA state testing and those types

12 of things, you would see that there has been

13 improvements in the academic ability of our

14 students, but you also have to say we have a

15 long way to go until I think that we are

16 effectively meeting their academic needs in

17 all categories and special needs of our

18 special-needs students across the state.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

20 Well, then how would the funding in this bill

21 specifically change those outcomes, in your

22 view?

23 DR. SMITH: I think that's a good

24 question. I think it will help with needed

25 resources that we need in funding. Again, a 41 1 lot of our specialists that we need, that are

2 specialized in the particular needs of these

3 students, are very costly for districts. So,

4 you know, many times balancing the budgets and

5 what you can do, and sometimes you stretch

6 those special-ed specialists across more

7 students to try to provide their needs, but

8 I'm not so sure it's effective because they

9 need more small group and one-to-one type of

10 assistance than our students who can more

11 naturally understand academics and move

12 forward.

13 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH: Just

14 a follow-up with that. Is there anything else

15 in the bill, specifically, that any of you

16 could tell me that would affect the student

17 outcomes? Because it really is about -- you

18 know, if we're changing the formula, it's

19 about outcomes and making sure the money is

20 spent wisely. Is there anything else that

21 would help affect those outcomes?

22 MR. KINTISCH: I think that I can

23 respond to that. Also, if I could also add

24 something to what Dr. Smith said for the first

25 question, the underfunding affects students 42 1 with disabilities most severely in those

2 school districts that have been underfunded

3 the worst by the current formula, those

4 districts that don't have 16 percent, as the

5 current formula assumes, but have much more

6 than 16 percent. In those school districts,

7 there's great harm to those children's

8 education that's being done, and House Bill

9 704 needs to be adopted to stop that bleeding,

10 basically.

11 Other provisions in the bill that

12 will have a direct impact on outcomes, I will

13 just give two examples. The first is that, as

14 Dr. Smith said, law requires, and school

15 districts are finally moving towards, more

16 inclusion of students with disabilities. And

17 as they do that, they're finding that not only

18 do the students with disabilities do better in

19 regular classrooms, but all students are able

20 to do better and learn better, and teachers

21 become better teachers for everybody when

22 inclusion happens.

23 Now, it's not appropriate for every

24 student, but in many cases, there's a real

25 positive effect. However, as Dr. Smith said, 43 1 there are great costs to that, and for the

2 first time, House Bill 704 would have an

3 inclusion variable in the formula that would

4 make sure that districts who are making a big

5 effort at inclusion are going to be reimbursed

6 for those expenses. That's one way that the

7 bill will have a big impact on student

8 outcomes, by strengthening the inclusion in

9 the classrooms.

10 The second way is the accountability

11 system. Although there are already some

12 strong accountability provisions in

13 Pennsylvania regulation and in federal law,

14 when those of us on this panel have met with

15 legislators over the years and talked to

16 legislators about special education, we are

17 often confronted with frustration from the

18 legislators saying, you know, I know that my

19 kids with disabilities need to do better, but

20 I don't know how to get my school district to

21 accomplish those goals. What can we do?

22 Don't we need more accountability?

23 And so, by placing the accountability

24 into the bill here, you will give the general

25 assembly better oversight and make sure that 44 1 the special-education plans the school

2 districts are already forming are not just

3 going to be plans that sit on a shelf. Most

4 of the plans that the districts form, they're

5 three-year plans to implement their special-

6 education programs for students, they're good

7 plans. But they're not always implemented

8 effectively, number one, because district

9 don't have resources, but, number two,

10 because, honestly, the general assembly hasn't

11 put a great emphasis on oversight in this

12 area.

13 As so, the bill, I think, will make a

14 big difference by giving the general assembly

15 more oversight and making sure that these

16 accountability provisions are taken seriously.

17 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH: And

18 the last part of my question is about

19 predictability, because I think that it is

20 really important for our school districts, our

21 local school districts, to be able to predict,

22 but I have traveled around and seen a lot of

23 schools, APSs, and our traditional schools,

24 our charter schools, and when I was at

25 Davidson School recently, there were severely 45 1 disabled students there. How are we going to

2 predict? Because we've got kids moving in and

3 out of districts. A lot of times they will

4 move into a district when they know that they

5 will get what they need. How will we cover

6 it? And how will HB 704 help us with that

7 predictability or covering those costs?

8 MR. OAKES: Let me just give one

9 concrete example, first, of how increased

10 funding to the districts that need it most

11 would help.

12 Most kids in special education are

13 kids with mild disabilities, the vast

14 majority. The greatest need for kids with

15 mild disabilities is reading. The first thing

16 the districts who are having financial

17 troubles, believe it or not, cut out is

18 reading specialists and reading teachers. In

19 Philadelphia, that was the very first thing to

20 go. I see Representative Youngblood shaking

21 her head.

22 This would -- this -- this additional

23 funding would allow districts to put back in

24 place those core services that would allow

25 students to make progress both with their -- 46 1 with their visualized goals, but in the -- or

2 in the academic structure in the state

3 standards.

4 And when kids learn -- know how to

5 read and can do math, behaviors go down. And

6 when behaviors go down, the entire school

7 learns better.

8 As far as predictability, one of the

9 issues that -- that small school districts

10 face, you may have a district with four

11 thousand kids and a provider of mental

12 retardation services opens up a group home in

13 your school district that has four children

14 with severe disabilities. That increases your

15 population of kids with severe disabilities by

16 400 percent, in many case, in a small

17 district.

18 I think that one of the things that

19 this will allow us to do, both with increased

20 funding and with institutionalizing the

21 contingency fund, the excess cost fund, would

22 allow districts, then, to apply for those

23 resources in order to deal with that.

24 I don't -- I hope that answers your

25 question. 47 1 MR. KINTISCH: Another part of the

2 answer is that when you adopt a formula like

3 is in House Bill 704, it will actually count

4 kids in every district every year, so that if

5 a population goes up in a particular school

6 district, they will get extra resources. Now

7 there are protections in the bill against

8 overidentification, which we can go into, but

9 there are very strong protections against

10 overidentification.

11 And -- but counting kids in districts

12 every year and making sure that districts

13 receive adequate resources to support the

14 education of those kids is the main item to

15 make sure that the districts can predict what

16 they can do to help those kids.

17 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

18 Thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

20 Representative Rapp.

21 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Thank you,

22 Mr. Chairman.

23 Thank you, folks, for being here

24 today.

25 Couple questions I'd like to follow 48 1 up -- is this microphone on -- with some of

2 the comments and questions of Representative

3 McIlvaine Smith regarding outcomes.

4 Last session, we had a hearing in

5 regards to funding formulas of surrounding

6 states and the states across the nation, and I

7 did have a question at that time in how this

8 formula would affect outcomes and was there

9 any data that changing the formula would

10 produce better outcomes such as lowering the

11 drop-out rate, increasing graduation rate,

12 better outcomes on transition. And I was told

13 no. There is no data that says that changing

14 the formula is actually going to produce

15 better outcomes.

16 So I guess I would ask Mr. Lapp, do

17 you have data that shows -- data and research

18 that shows changing the formula would produce

19 better outcomes?

20 MR. KINTISCH: Representative Rapp,

21 if I could help my colleague, that wasn't the

22 research question that we had asked him to

23 consider in the office. We had asked him to

24 evaluate the formulas themselves. We hadn't

25 asked him to research the outcomes. 49 1 But we do have a professor on the

2 panel, and maybe, Dr. Neuville, if we can ask

3 you to address the research that you see in

4 your career.

5 DR. NEUVILLE: Now, there's being put

6 on the spot.

7 What I see is in relation to the

8 accountability, and so if my friend at the end

9 of the table can connect accountability to the

10 funding formula, then what I say will be

11 relevant.

12 But what I find is that when -- that

13 we live in an environment where when our

14 students grow up and become citizens, a large

15 majority of them are unemployed and live in

16 poverty.

17 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: I understand.

18 DR. NEUVILLE: That's the last census

19 data. So when the young people come to me and

20 say, how are we doing? I say, Not very good.

21 Our product is not producing very well.

22 The things that point to increased

23 learning, increased life outcomes, are things

24 such as integration, in schools known as

25 inclusion, that if we just took that and we 50 1 took the last hundred years of what we know

2 about integration, that people perform better

3 when they are included, and so -- because this

4 bill is biased towards that.

5 Do I have the data for that? Not in

6 relation to this bill, no. But do we have the

7 data that shows that students -- that people

8 who live in an inclusive environment tend to

9 have a more positive life trajectory?

10 Absolutely.

11 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: And I

12 understand completely, sir. However, in my

13 opinion, that whole setting or placement is

14 derived from the IEP team making that

15 decision.

16 And I do have some concerns that this

17 is somewhat driven by the percentage of time a

18 student is in a regular classroom, which I'm

19 in favor of, but at the end of the day, that

20 should be driven by the IEP team and not by

21 the state saying, You can have more money if

22 you can prove that so many of your students

23 are in an inclusive setting, when that child's

24 placement should be determined by the IEP

25 team. 51 1 DR. NEUVILLE: And where this bill

2 comes down, you're absolutely correct. I

3 completely agree with that. We'd be going

4 against federal law if we said anything else.

5 However, it would be -- it would not

6 be wise of us to assume that IEP teams do not

7 have the bias that answers the question, Do we

8 have the capacity in the regular-ed classroom,

9 not can the student -- not can the student's

10 supplemental aides and services be offered in

11 the regular-ed classroom, but does the

12 teacher, the environment, et cetera, have the

13 skill and capacity to do that? And what we're

14 operating on now is sort of a Catch 22, that

15 when the student comes, through their IEP

16 team, and say perhaps they should be in

17 regular education, the answer frequently is

18 no, not because of the student.

19 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: And I

20 understand that. First choice should be

21 regular education, with supplementary aides

22 and services. I'm very clear on that.

23 DR. NEUVILLE: And understand that --

24 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: But I'm

25 concerned about the catch that you receive 52 1 money based on how many students are in the

2 regular education. And I certainly understand

3 the accountability issue, and I was looking at

4 the -- taking away the state and federal

5 money.

6 Now, we already have special-

7 education monitoring of schools. And we have

8 special-education plans that are submitted to

9 the state. And, correct me if I'm wrong,

10 you're the Educational Law Center here, isn't

11 it in place right now that the state could

12 withdraw a superintendent's certification if

13 they are found to be in noncompliance with

14 state special-education law, or am I wrong on

15 that?

16 DR. NEUVILLE: Let me just say two

17 things, then I'm going to pass it over to

18 these two people. One is, I just want to

19 point to one -- just one school. I know it's

20 not a huge data source, but if you went to the

21 Patrick O'Hearn School in the Boston public

22 school system, you would find some data on

23 full inclusion and the outcomes of that.

24 Perhaps these folks can do a little research

25 for you. 53 1 And the other is in relation to

2 special-ed plans and also the corrective

3 action plans are part of the Gaskin

4 settlement, the state may have the power, but

5 they have not demonstrated the skill in doing

6 that.

7 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: I understand.

8 MR. KINTISCH: Representative Rapp, I

9 guess, when looking at the accountability

10 provisions in the bill, the easiest way, I

11 think, to look at what's happening with

12 accountability is that, although federal

13 law -- although state law does require that

14 there be support for students, required that

15 there be qualified teachers for students, and

16 there are penalties for individual

17 professionals and there are penalties for

18 school districts that don't meet those legal

19 requirements. Because the state has provided

20 such a low level of funding for school

21 districts, honestly, the state officials have

22 been reluctant to, and so have federal

23 officials, and we know, because at the

24 Education Law Center we talk to them all the

25 time. 54 1 They've really been reluctant to

2 enforce accountability on districts because

3 they know that they really don't always have

4 the resources to provide a quality education

5 for students. So it is appropriate, just as

6 the general assembly did with basic education

7 last year, where you adopted in statute

8 accountability provisions and made sure that

9 accountability and funding reform went hand in

10 hand with basic education. I believe that

11 what Representative Sturla is recommending in

12 House Bill 704 is exactly the same thing for

13 special education.

14 And you referred to the penalty

15 provisions. What representative has crafted

16 here is actually much more workable and

17 district-friendly than the current, what I

18 would call, very excessive accountability

19 provisions that are available to the

20 department. One reason that they don't use

21 those current accountability provisions is

22 because it says you take away a person's

23 license. They're not going to do that.

24 What --

25 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Why would you 55 1 think that they would take the money then?

2 MR. KINTISCH: Well, the money

3 provision -- the penalty provision that exists

4 right now says that the state can take away a

5 district's entire budget for special education

6 if they find them in violation of the special-

7 ed requirements. They're not going to take

8 away the entire budget because that would

9 penalize all of the students. So what

10 Representative Sturla has placed into House

11 Bill 704, I believe very wisely, says that if

12 the department is having trouble with

13 compliance with a school district, and the

14 district is getting new resources under this

15 bill, that the department would, first over

16 all, try to work with that district, of

17 course. But if they needed to actually use

18 accountability, then there could be a

19 temporary withholding of just 5 percent. And

20 then all of that money would be given back to

21 the district as soon as they come into

22 compliance.

23 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Thank you. I

24 don't mean to cut you off, but I have one more

25 question, and I know other people. 56 1 For Mr. Oakes -- and, Ken, I --

2 really great to see you here. You made a

3 comment regarding that more funding would

4 allow districts to -- allow districts to

5 provide reading specialists. And I have a

6 great concern about the reading and children

7 with learning disabilities. You said "allow,"

8 and that doesn't mean they necessarily will.

9 MR. OAKES: Exactly. Exactly.

10 "Allow" was probably not -- I guess it would

11 help school districts to do that. And,

12 unfortunately, I think what we've seen in the

13 past, and you and I have been around a long

14 time when it comes to special ed, we've been

15 advocates together for many years. And what

16 we know is that, unfortunately, when it comes

17 to resources, the first things that often

18 get -- at least I know, the first thing that

19 often gets cut are the things that the most

20 vulnerable kids in the district need. And

21 that -- whether those kids are lower-income

22 kids, whether those kids are minority kids,

23 whether they're English language learner, and

24 then there's kids with disabilities. Those

25 are the first kids that seem to get cut in the 57 1 process.

2 What we would hope is that the --

3 that the education committee in the house will

4 look at this as an opportunity to push the

5 department and push the Bureau of Special

6 Education to improve and sort of update the

7 way that they monitor the quality of services,

8 best practices.

9 You mentioned monitoring. For

10 example, monitoring in Pennsylvania is going

11 through a series of files, the names of which

12 they get in advance, and they check to see --

13 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: I was a

14 special-ed monitor.

15 MR. OAKES: -- that all the paperwork

16 is in place. And if the IEP is dated

17 correctly, if the paperwork is in place, then

18 the monitoring is fine and everything is

19 clear.

20 They don't look at how many kids with

21 learning disabilities can read. How many kids

22 with learning disabilities have behavior

23 problems because they can't read. They don't

24 look at best practices.

25 And so hopefully, not only will this 58 1 allow districts -- help districts to put money

2 towards the most vulnerable population,

3 hopefully it will encourage you to push the

4 department to be a little more aggressive in

5 how they monitor what they monitor and how

6 they provide technical assistance and support

7 to school districts.

8 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Thank you,

9 Ken.

10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

11 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

12 Representative Longietti.

13 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you,

14 Mr. Chairman.

15 And thank you for your testimony this

16 morning.

17 As I understand it, the legislation,

18 proposed legislation, certainly the approach

19 is a laudable approach. I'd like to look a

20 little more at the details and, fortunately,

21 we have a spreadsheet of the different school

22 districts. And when you look down through

23 them, the same thing happened when we did the

24 basic-education formula last year, you see

25 some things that pop out at you, and you 59 1 eventually tweak that.

2 But, for example, when I look

3 through, as I understand it right now, the

4 state uses the assumption of about 16 percent

5 of their kids are special education. I see, I

6 think, twenty-two schools that under this bill

7 would receive a double-digit increase in

8 special-education funding, at least in the

9 first year.

10 For example, Apollo-Ridge in

11 Armstrong, 16 percent special education. They

12 would receive 12.08 percent increase.

13 Ferndale in Cambria County, 16.7 percent

14 special ed. They would receive a 10.10

15 percent increase. And Lebanon School District

16 in Lebanon County, 15.6 percent special ed,

17 classified to receive a 13.85 percent

18 increase.

19 Then I compare that to some other

20 school districts. For example, Farrell School

21 District in my county of Mercer, 16.1 percent

22 special-education classified, but only 1.9

23 percent increase. And this is perhaps one of

24 the poorest school districts in the state. I

25 think 88 percent of the students are free and 60 1 reduced lunch. Reynolds School District,

2 which is also one of my poorer ones, 15.6

3 percent special-ed classification, 1.67

4 percent increase.

5 Surprisingly, school districts like

6 Pittsburgh City, 19.1 percent special ed, but

7 only 1.13 percent increase; or Wilkinsburg,

8 25.1 percent special ed, only a 1.63 percent

9 increase.

10 And I know there are other factors

11 that are used in this formula. I guess what

12 I'm trying to find out is why those

13 disparities. And I suspect I'm going to hear

14 the answer, Well, you know, we factored in

15 things like local efforts, how much local

16 effort is used to produce tax revenue. But

17 whether I look at some of those districts, and

18 I live in Farrell, it's pretty tough to raise

19 taxes when you're really a poor school

20 district.

21 So I just wondered your reaction to

22 that.

23 MR. KINTISCH: Representative, it's a

24 fair question, and maybe I could start the

25 answer and then ask Sandy Zelno, who, you 61 1 know, works with districts in the western part

2 of the state last year and under this formula,

3 we have varying levels of funding increased,

4 and can talk about her experience there.

5 But if I could just first respond, I

6 believe that the way that the disability

7 community, at least in educators working with

8 students with disabilities, look at House Bill

9 704, we're not just asking for more money

10 here. This is not a bill that we would view

11 as just throwing money at a problem. We

12 wouldn't ask for. We would feel that would be

13 the wrong approach.

14 We believe this -- the House Bill 704

15 is a way of improving the delivery of special

16 education to students across the state. So

17 the current formula that has the 16 percent

18 assumption, there are districts that, you

19 know, are far below that. There are districts

20 that are far above that. There are districts

21 that are very close to that.

22 And when you actually have a formula

23 that really counts kids, districts are going

24 to be affected going forward. I believe that

25 Representative Sturla wanted to make sure that 62 1 the hold-harmless provision of the bill would

2 protect districts so that they would have

3 adequate resources going forward, no matter

4 where they are in that percentage count.

5 But I would say that probably rather

6 than looking at tax effort or aide ratio, the

7 biggest variable to look at is actually the

8 student count variable. And be happy to, you

9 know -- I'm sure that Representative Sturla's

10 staff and I know others here will be happy to

11 go through district by district and look at

12 the spreadsheet and see how the formula is

13 going.

14 But, Sandy, would you want to address

15 the other part of that?

16 MS. ZELNO: One of the things we

17 discovered when we looked at the results of

18 the basic-ed subsidy last year, I'll give an

19 example, Chartiers Valley add a large

20 increase. Now, it wasn't a lot they were

21 getting from the state, but it was a large

22 increase upon what they were getting. But

23 they had gained a thousand students from the

24 last time we did real head counts and hadn't

25 received a penny extra for that. 63 1 And so some of the districts that we

2 looked at that weren't getting large

3 increases, that were deemed to be poorer

4 districts, had lost thousands of kids. Okay?

5 And so, therefore, the spending was so much

6 higher per kid in a lot of those districts.

7 And so really sitting down trying to

8 figure it out on a spreadsheet takes a lot,

9 and what they were already spending, some

10 districts that are perceived to be poor,

11 sometimes their aide ratio isn't all that

12 poor. For instance, the Pittsburgh School

13 District, I live out in Westmoreland County,

14 has a better aide ratio than my suburban

15 district, and so Pittsburgh isn't all that

16 poor in terms of wealth or person -- wealth,

17 personal income, or the property taxes

18 either.

19 MR. KINTISCH: I think what we all

20 want is for the formula to be accurate, so

21 that every year it is providing what is an

22 accurate and adequate level of funding for

23 school districts. And if there are, you know,

24 abnormalities that pop out of the formula,

25 hopefully the hold-harmless provision will 64 1 protect those districts, but I'm sure that --

2 can't speak for Representative Sturla's staff,

3 and I'm sure that they would be happy to sit

4 down with you or any other member -- with any

5 member of this panel in order to examine, make

6 sure that the formula is fair for all

7 districts.

8 MS. ZELNO: Pittsburgh, for example,

9 had forty thousand kids when I first started

10 working with them in 2000. Now they're down

11 to around -- something around, correct me,

12 about twenty-eight thousand, maybe twenty-six

13 thousand. And so their per-people spending is

14 very high since last time we really counted

15 kids.

16 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: I

17 appreciate that answer.

18 I know some -- at least some of these

19 school districts, and I known Wilkinsburg

20 is --

21 MS. ZELNO: I know. It's a tough

22 one.

23 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Is there

24 any concern -- one of the numbers that did pop

25 out at me was -- I was a little bit surprised, 65 1 maybe I'm just off base, that Philadelphia

2 School District only had 13.2 percent

3 classified as special ed. Is there any

4 concern that there may be some undercounting

5 in some of those school districts?

6 MR. KINTISCH: I mean, Ken used to be

7 special-ed director in Philly, but Dr. Smith,

8 I wonder if you want to respond to your

9 perspective just with your district, with your

10 colleagues around the state on how

11 underidentification and overidentification can

12 happen.

13 DR. SMITH: I'm on the spot. I sit

14 in a district that has going on 17 percent

15 special education, and I will tell you one of

16 the newest initiatives of the state is the

17 response to intervention model, which is a

18 model in which you provide support and

19 intervention for a student prior to

20 identification into special education, taking

21 a look at students who maybe did not have all

22 the resources and the books in front of them

23 very early on in life before they come to

24 school, and instead of overidentifying those

25 students and giving them the needed 66 1 intervention and support prior to moving them

2 into, like, a learning support, learning

3 disabled kind of philosophy.

4 So, you know, I think there's a lot

5 of work in districts moving that model through

6 that will help to, I think, drop that

7 identification.

8 I would think that it would be wrong

9 for me to say that sometimes those

10 identifications, depending on the districts,

11 would be different, depending on your overall

12 population of students that are within your

13 district, you know. And so I would say that

14 there would have to be some difference in

15 regards to that. I would understand your

16 question, your concern with the 13 percent in

17 the Philadelphia area.

18 But, you know, I think there's

19 additional supports that are provided for all

20 students who have -- are labeled with a

21 disability or not, that I sometimes call my

22 gray-area students. We try to provide as much

23 resources and assistance with them through our

24 specialists as well as with our students with

25 identification. 67 1 And, so, you're going to have some

2 variety there, there's no doubt in my mind.

3 But I would say that the provisions of

4 identifying special-needs students and stuff

5 are pretty consistent in that I think that,

6 you know, to use a cliche, we're more close

7 together than we are different in regards to

8 that, but you would see some disparity,

9 there's no doubt.

10 MR. KINTISCH: Representative, if I

11 could just add one other quick point, which is

12 that in your binders you have this report that

13 was the updating of the costing-out study that

14 was done for the general assembly, 2007, done

15 by the same consultants. And when they went

16 around the state and spoke honestly with

17 special-education professionals, what they

18 were told is that in the most underfunded

19 districts regarding special education, those

20 school official were forced to kind of cut

21 corners sometimes, and sometimes they wouldn't

22 provide all of the therapies that a student

23 needs that they know the student would really

24 benefit from because they just couldn't afford

25 it. 68 1 They wouldn't try to hurt the student

2 in any way, but they just didn't have the

3 resources, and if they would try to provide

4 all of the resources for every student with a

5 disability, they would end up robbing Peter to

6 pay Paul because then they'd have to take

7 money away from the regular-education

8 programs. They -- the resources just aren't

9 there in the most -- under the current funding

10 system.

11 But what the consultants found when

12 they talked to the special-education

13 professionals is that another area where

14 school districts can sometimes cut corners,

15 even though they don't want to, is to

16 underidentify students and to not provide all

17 of the students who actually need the help

18 with the special-education programs.

19 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Lastly,

20 because I know there are other questions, but

21 maybe something that merits a closer look -- I

22 don't profess to know all the demographics in

23 all the five hundred one school districts.

24 When you looked through the twenty-two that I

25 saw were getting double-digit increases, I 69 1 didn't notice any district that I thought was

2 a minority district. And I'm just wondering

3 if that might merit a little bit closer look.

4 Thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

6 Representative Youngblood.

7 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNGBLOOD: In answer

8 to Representative Longietti's question, it is

9 my opinion that Philadelphia is severely

10 undercounted as far as their special ed and

11 learning disabled children.

12 First of all, the district is so big

13 that with No Child Left Behind and in order to

14 pass the test, children are just skating

15 through the system. Nobody takes the time to

16 identify any of the needs they may have. It's

17 easier to pass a functioning illiterate

18 through school and graduate then take the time

19 to find out what some of their needs are.

20 And I see that all the time by some

21 of the students that come to my office and

22 say, Oh, I'm a high school graduate. They

23 cannot even spell the school that they attend

24 nor even spell Philadelphia which I find

25 surprising, so when they have to fill out 70 1 their job applications, I usually end up

2 filling it out for them. And when I ask them

3 to give me an assessment of a writing sample,

4 it may be on a second- or third-grade level

5 with mistakes.

6 In going into my schools, I find that

7 a lot of times the teachers are overburdened

8 with a lot of behavioral problems, as you

9 stated, could have something to do with

10 academics. But Philadelphia, whenever they

11 make that statement, it is severely

12 undercounted as far as their special-ed

13 students because they're never identified, and

14 they go all the way through school. It's

15 like, let's just push them to the side or send

16 them to one of our CEP schools instead of

17 looking at what the real problem is.

18 Thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

20 Like to thank the panel for the

21 presentation. I'm sure we'll have an

22 opportunity to interact with you as we move

23 forward.

24 And I'd like to ask that our second

25 panel would come forward and make their 71 1 presentations, again emphasizing our efforts

2 to try and keep the presentations concise and

3 recognizing that we have about forty-five

4 minutes left in this session.

5 Good morning. Could you identify

6 yourself?

7 MS. CARROLL: Good morning. I'm Jane

8 Carroll from the Education Policy and

9 Leadership Center.

10 MS. LANDIS: I'm Lisa Landis,

11 government relations specialist, Pennsylvania

12 School Board Association.

13 MS. RISCH: And Janis Risch,

14 executive director, Good Schools Pennsylvania.

15 MS. CARROLL: Good morning, Chairman

16 Roebuck and members of the House Education

17 Committee.

18 I'm a senior fellow with the

19 Education Policy and Leadership Center. I'm

20 here this morning to speak with you on behalf

21 of the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign

22 about House Bill 704.

23 The Pennsylvania School Funding

24 Campaign is a state-wide coalition of

25 individuals and organizations representing 72 1 hundreds of thousands of parents, students,

2 educators, school board members,

3 administrators, and other concerned citizens

4 advocating for a comprehensive systemic reform

5 to Pennsylvania's public education funding

6 system.

7 The campaign was formed in 2007 with

8 the primary mission to support and encourage

9 policy makers to use the results of the

10 November 2007 costing-out study to develop a

11 new funding formula that adequately addresses

12 the needs of each district and provides the

13 necessary resources for all students to

14 successfully meet Pennsylvania's academic

15 standards.

16 That costing-out study included an

17 extra weighting for students entitled to

18 special education in its calculation. As you

19 are aware, that when the general assembly took

20 the historic action last year to put into law

21 a new funding formula for basic education,

22 based on the finding of the 2007 costing-out

23 study, the group of students whose needs were

24 quantified in the study but were excluded from

25 the new funding formula were our students with 73 1 special needs. House Bill 704 is written to

2 remedy this exclusion.

3 Prior to 1991, funding for special

4 education was based on the excess costs

5 associated with providing an education for

6 students with special needs. The law was

7 changed in 1991 when the state began to fund

8 school districts using the methodology

9 currently in place, which assumes students

10 with special needs account for 16 percent of

11 the enrollment of each district.

12 The state-wide average is 15.5

13 percent, but the actual student count as a

14 percentage of the enrollment ranges from 8 to

15 28 percent. By using 16 percent, a number

16 that approximates the state-wide average

17 instead of a number based on the actual

18 student count, a huge disparity is created

19 between state funding and the actual cost of

20 the program.

21 This gap must be filled by local

22 funding. This puts an unfair and uneven

23 burden on local property owners to see their

24 property taxes increase to compensate for the

25 state's underfunding of the programs that 74 1 serve our most vulnerable students.

2 House Bill 704, if adopted, would

3 change the way the commonwealth funds special

4 education. The bill's language parallels the

5 language in the basic-education subsidy. The

6 proposed special-education funding formula

7 uses the methodology of the basic-education

8 formula. This proposal, consistent with the

9 finding in the 2007 costing-out study, would

10 provide for the phasing in of a system of

11 funding for special education which would be

12 adequate, equitable, predictable, and

13 accountable.

14 As you begin your deliberations of

15 House Bill 704, the campaign would like to

16 offer four areas for further consideration.

17 First, finances. The current

18 economic conditions in the commonwealth create

19 a challenge for all of us as we consider the

20 best use of limited state and federal stimulus

21 dollars. The campaign wants to emphasize its

22 position. An increase of four hundred

23 eighteen million dollars for the second-year

24 funding of the formula for basic education is

25 our top priority. This will keep the six-year 75 1 plan for school funding reform on schedule.

2 The campaign position is that the

3 general assembly should use federal stimulus

4 funds under the state fiscal stabilization

5 fund to pay for this four hundred eighteen

6 million dollar increase. Nothing that the

7 general assembly considers concerning House

8 Bill 704 or related education issues should be

9 allowed to detract from the need to fully fund

10 with four hundred eighteen million dollars,

11 the second year of the basic-education formula

12 and maintain support for all other basic-

13 education line items.

14 We remind you that school districts

15 will also receive federal stimulus funding

16 dedicated for special education during the

17 next two years.

18 Second, single formula. House Bill

19 704 addresses special-education funding by

20 establishing a section of law separate from

21 but consistent with the basic-education

22 formula. While there are divided views on

23 this matter, some members of the campaign

24 believe it is important to address this issue

25 of basic education and special education in a 76 1 single formula. While it may be expedient to

2 use the approach of House Bill 704 for the

3 time being, it is most important that basic

4 education and special education be addressed

5 in language and principal that will easily be

6 combined at some future date.

7 Third, statute versus regulation.

8 This legislation proposes to put into statute

9 requirements pertaining to the submission of

10 special-education plans that are currently

11 required under existing Department of

12 Education regulations.

13 Some others of the campaign are

14 concerned that this creates an unnecessary

15 redundancy and may make useful changes in the

16 future more difficult to achieve, especially

17 when there are changes in federal law

18 requiring changes in state policy on these

19 issues.

20 Other members are concerned that

21 including all of these provisions in statute

22 will make them more vulnerable to future

23 alterations through a legislative process that

24 at times is less transparent in scrutinizing

25 than the lengthy regulatory process. 77 1 And fourth, gifted students. Nowhere

2 in this bill or in the current basic-education

3 subsidy formula is any additional weighting

4 given to our students in gifted programs. The

5 costing-out study included a range of weights

6 for gifted students from twenty hundred to

7 sixty-six hundred, with the smallest school

8 districts receiving the highest weights.

9 Currently, gifted students fall into

10 a crack, unaddressed by both the existing

11 basic education and the proposed special-

12 education funding formula.

13 The campaign wants to commend and

14 support the members of the general assembly

15 who have introduced House Bill 704. We

16 support your attention to this issue as an

17 intricate part of school funding reform.

18 On behalf of the School Funding

19 Campaign, thank you for this opportunity to

20 speak with you today about House Bill 704.

21 We remain available to help in any

22 way that you may find useful as you proceed

23 with this important issue.

24 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

25 MS. LANDIS: Good morning, Chairman 78 1 Roebuck, members of the committee.

2 Andrew Faust, who is an attorney

3 specializing in special-education matters, has

4 provided written testimony on House Bill 704,

5 which is included in your packet. However, he

6 was unable to be with us this morning, so I

7 will be -- I will be providing that testimony

8 on his behalf and on behalf of the School

9 Boards Association.

10 Beginning the third paragraph: We

11 support the six-year phase-in of the special-

12 education funding formula as we recognize that

13 the economic conditions make the phase-in

14 appropriate. We would, of course, support a

15 formula in line with the 2007 costing-out

16 study. However, the aggressive new

17 accountability standard proposed in House Bill

18 704 that are tied into the new funding formula

19 are cause for concern.

20 Specifically, IDEA provides that

21 children with disabilities, to the maximum

22 extent appropriate, should be educated with

23 children who are not disabled, and that

24 separate schooling or special classes occur

25 only when the nature of the disability means 79 1 that education in a regular classroom cannot

2 be satisfactorily achieved.

3 House Bill 704 diverts from federal

4 law by asserting a standard of inclusiveness

5 that may not be aligned with current federal

6 language.

7 The proposed new accountability,

8 monitoring, and planning requirements embodied

9 in proposed new Section 2509.14 are so

10 exacting in their detail as to render unlikely

11 the possibility that already overtaxed

12 special-education administrators at the school

13 district level will ever be able to comply.

14 Equally unlikely is the prospect that

15 staff in the Pennsylvania Department of

16 Education, Bureau of Special Education, even

17 with the assistance of private consultants and

18 staff within the intermediate units and the

19 Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance

20 Network will have the numbers or the expertise

21 to undertake the level of plan review,

22 progress monitoring, data analysis, and

23 technical assistance contemplated.

24 Although exacting in their number,

25 the requirements established for special- 80 1 education plan content and monitoring defy

2 objective articulation, much less

3 measurement.

4 Proposed subclause (a)(4)(ii) of the

5 new proposed section, for example, requires

6 that the special-education plan of each

7 district identify programs and strategies that

8 are most likely to make progress in resolving

9 student achievement challenges in specific

10 schools, grade levels, and populations that

11 the school district identifies as most in need

12 in the district.

13 Subsection (b)(2) and (3) require

14 planning and progress monitoring based on,

15 among other things, performance indicators as

16 defined in this act and in federal law.

17 Performance indicators established under the

18 IDEA, however, are extremely broadly framed.

19 They vary, moreover, in their specific

20 emphasis and measurement criteria over time,

21 at the whim of the United States Department of

22 Education exercised outside the regulatory

23 process.

24 Perhaps of greatest concern are the

25 provisions of subsection (b)(3) and (d) of the 81 1 new proposed section permitting the

2 withholding up to 5 percent of all federal

3 IDEA funding for causes not recognized under

4 the IDEA itself for withholding IDEA subgrant

5 dollars.

6 A state education agency can either

7 reallocate federal dollars to itself to serve

8 children directly when it finds that the local

9 educational agency has failed to do so, or it

10 can withhold funds that are not being expended

11 in accordance with the maintenance of efforts

12 and supplement, not supplant, spending limits

13 of the IDEA.

14 Finally, the language of the proposed

15 subclause (c)(3)(ii) appears to allow for

16 waivers of local maintenance of effort

17 requirements that do not mirror the language

18 of similar sections of the IDEA itself and

19 thus could lead to inconsistencies between

20 federal and state oversight. The result could

21 very well be that a school district excused

22 from the local MOE requirements by the

23 commonwealth might find itself facing adverse

24 audit findings from the United States

25 Department of Education. 82 1 Finally, the special-education plans

2 already exist in state regulations under Title

3 22, where they have been fully vetted.

4 Putting the plans into statute raises several

5 red flags for us, including the fact that it

6 will become too amenable to further changes by

7 special interest groups, rather than utilizing

8 the comprehensive regulatory process.

9 Again, thank you for allowing me to

10 provide testimony today on this very important

11 issue.

12 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

13 MS. RISCH: Good morning, Chairman

14 Roebuck and members of the House Education

15 Committee.

16 I feel I have to begin by making a

17 disclaimer. At the beginning, Representative

18 Sturla said that the groups that were

19 testifying had years of experience with

20 special education. I want to make it clear

21 Good School Pennsylvania expertise is not in

22 the area of special education. What we are is

23 a state-wide network of concerned citizens in

24 support of an effective system of public

25 education to meet the needs of students, 83 1 schools, and communities.

2 And like our colleagues in the

3 disabilities community, we believe in the

4 fundamental rights of all children to receive

5 a high quality education, and we also believe

6 that all kids can be successful in school,

7 given the right supports.

8 However, the perspective that I would

9 like to share today is to -- is to mention

10 that Good Schools has come to recognize that

11 just as education is key to an individual's

12 success, in the years that we've spent talking

13 to community leaders and editorial boards,

14 writers and legislators and other important

15 community leaders, they've come to recognize

16 that the manner in which we finance education

17 is also critical to a region's success.

18 And as has been discussed earlier

19 today and as this committee is well aware,

20 until last year, Pennsylvania employed a

21 method of allocating state funding for public

22 education that contained two critical flaws.

23 The first was that it failed to set funding

24 benchmarks for school districts that took real

25 student and school district variables into 84 1 consideration; and, secondly, overreliance on

2 local taxes to support the cost of public

3 education penalized the communities that don't

4 have a competitive tax base.

5 Increasingly, Good Schools encounters

6 community leaders who identify this flawed

7 funding mechanism as one of the primary

8 reasons for the hollowing out and blighting

9 of their communities. Community leaders

10 report to us that they note that residential

11 and community developers avoid investing in

12 high-taxed but underfunded school districts,

13 instead choosing to build in fast-developing

14 areas where school taxes are lower.

15 Higher-earning families then choose

16 to move out to those same areas in order to

17 pay lower school taxes while receiving a

18 higher value of education. And then, sadly,

19 immigrants, impoverished children, and those

20 with special needs are then blamed for the

21 demands they place on the financially

22 struggling school districts.

23 In short, a flawed system of

24 education finance encourages sprawl and

25 discourages investment in older communities. 85 1 It increases demographic tension, and it fails

2 to provide a quality education to too many of

3 our region's children.

4 The general assembly has made

5 enormous strides in the past years to turn

6 Pennsylvania around. In authorizing the

7 costing-out study of 2006, the general

8 assembly chose to identify the programmatic

9 and financial resources needed by school

10 districts to give all students a fair

11 opportunity to meet the state's academic

12 standards.

13 And then last year, the general

14 assembly supported a new school funding

15 formula that uses the costing-out data to set

16 an adequacy target for each school district

17 based on its student enrollment and other

18 demographics, and commits to phasing in state

19 fundings to communities that are underfunded

20 and financially overburdened.

21 And, Representative Longietti, I'm

22 very sensitive to the comments that you made

23 about questioning whether this formula meets

24 the needs of all school districts, and what it

25 reminds of is when I used to be a reporter 86 1 covering school board meetings and the next

2 day I'd get angry calls from the school board

3 and angry calls from teachers and the parents,

4 and I'd think, well, maybe my reporting was

5 objective because nobody's entirely satisfied.

6 And perhaps this new school funding formula,

7 in the same vein, is actually objective and

8 serving its purpose.

9 However, many of the school and

10 community leaders that Good Schools

11 Pennsylvania speaks with have at least come to

12 see this new school funding formula as an

13 insurance policy that will protect them if

14 they start to see a significant growth in

15 enrollment, if they start to see an influx in

16 immigrant students who are struggling to learn

17 the language, or see a decline in community

18 wealth because of the loss of an important

19 industry.

20 However, this new insurance policy,

21 so to speak, does not yet include a rider to

22 address the cost of special education. As has

23 already been discussed, Pennsylvania continues

24 to drive out special-education funding based

25 on the formula that makes erroneous 87 1 assumptions about school districts, assumes

2 that students with special needs account for

3 16 percent of the enrollment in each school

4 district. And while this may be the state

5 average, does not reflect the actual

6 experience of many school districts. Some

7 districts have far fewer special-needs

8 students and some have more.

9 For instance, driving -- accompanying

10 me this morning in the ride in from southeast

11 PA was the president of Norristown Area School

12 District, Jan Pearce, who shared with me the

13 challenges of her school district that has

14 well over 20 percent special-ed students. And

15 as districts like Norristown know filling this

16 gap with local funding puts an additional

17 burden on the local property owners.

18 Good Schools Pennsylvania appreciates

19 the efforts of the Special Education Reform

20 Coalition, which I think has worked hard to

21 propose strategies for eliminating any

22 incentives for overidentification of special-

23 needs students. It is my understanding part

24 of the reason why Pennsylvania abandoned any

25 kind of rational formula in the '90s. 88 1 We're also encouraged to see that HB

2 704 has garnered an impressive list of

3 co-sponsors, who appear to represent urban,

4 suburban, growing, and rural districts.

5 Special-needs students cross all boundaries as

6 is the need to support the cost of their

7 education.

8 Without fixing how we fund special

9 education, the new school funding formula that

10 we adopted last year will retain a dangerous

11 flaw that threatens to undermine the good that

12 we are doing to support students, strengthen

13 schools, reduce pressure on local property

14 taxes, and revitalize communities.

15 As yesterday's editorial in the

16 Scranton Times notes, an effective system of

17 education finance is key to both short-term

18 and long-term economic development in

19 Pennsylvania.

20 I commend the members of the general

21 assembly who have introduced HB 704 and thank

22 the members of the House Education Committee

23 for your attention to this critical issue.

24 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you very

25 much. 89 1 Let me do a series of things. First,

2 we've been joined by another member of the

3 committee. I'd ask that Representative

4 Pallone introduce himself.

5 REPRESENTATIVE PALLONE: Thank you,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 John Pallone, I represent the 54th

8 legislative district in northern Westmoreland

9 County and southern Armstrong County, seven

10 school districts and three vocational

11 schools. Thank you.

12 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

13 And I want to go to committee

14 questions. Before I do that, I do have a

15 point I'd like to get clarified. And,

16 actually, it came out -- in part out of what

17 was said in the first panel when they offered

18 a definition of special education. But it's

19 certainly reemphasized by the comments of Jane

20 Carroll, and that is, what is the relationship

21 of special and gifted education? Should

22 gifted education properly be a part of what

23 we're talking about here?

24 MS. CARROLL: I think Pennsylvania

25 has a long history of including gifted 90 1 education as part of special education. It

2 was one of the first states to consider gifted

3 as a category of special education.

4 Several years ago there was a

5 separate chapter of the school code that was

6 written on just gifted education. And at that

7 point it became a little bit fuzzier as to

8 whether or not gifted students were still

9 under the umbrella of special education since

10 they were no longer covered in the chapter of

11 the school code that dealt with special

12 education.

13 And as the funding in Pennsylvania

14 for special education became more scarce, a

15 lot of the school districts began to not fund

16 the gifted programs out of their special-ed

17 dollars but funded them out of their basic-

18 education dollars, because there were not

19 enough special-ed dollars to do everything.

20 So that became one of the programs that was

21 not covered under special ed.

22 So, I would say it's fuzzy.

23 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Fuzzy. Fuzzy in

24 the bill also, is it not?

25 MS. CARROLL: No, it's excluded in 91 1 the bill.

2 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: That makes it very

3 fuzzy.

4 MS. CARROLL: It is clear in the

5 costing-out study that it was a category of

6 students whose needs required some additional

7 funding, and so far, as I mentioned, they sort

8 of dropped through the crack and they're not

9 covered under either proposal at the moment.

10 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I don't want to

11 belabor this because our time is short, but I

12 do see a group defending somewhat in the back,

13 but I think it's something that I would like

14 to get clarified, and certainly something I

15 think that needs to be addressed for a number

16 of different reasons.

17 And I don't want -- I will pass on

18 further discussion, but I did want to get that

19 on the record. And go first to Representative

20 Tallman, who had a question.

21 We'll pass. Go to Representative

22 McIlvaine Smith.

23 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

24 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

25 First, I wanted to say to Janis from 92 1 Good Schools PA that I really appreciated, I

2 guess, it was in '07 that you had a

3 demonstration that a lot of members were

4 invited to in the main rotunda to demonstrate

5 how the lack of resources, adequate resources,

6 I should say, affects the outcomes of

7 successful -- for success, excuse me.

8 Anyway, and I loved it because we

9 were given scissors that didn't cut. We were

10 given a brown crayon that --

11 MS. RISCH: You're giving away -- I

12 would love for the members of the House

13 Education Committee --

14 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

15 Okay. Didn't give it away. I won't go any

16 further, but anyway, it was a great

17 demonstration. And it really, for me, as a

18 former teacher, showed how funding for those

19 resources really is important for the

20 outcomes.

21 But I wanted to turn to Jane. I know

22 that you said something in your testimony

23 about federal stimulus funds. And I know

24 there's a concern that I've heard in the

25 legislature about, you know, won't that create 93 1 a cliff? If we use the stimulus money, the

2 stabilization fund or whatever, if we use it

3 this year, or next, that then there will be

4 this cliff that we won't be able to pay for.

5 So can you speak to that for me, please?

6 MS. CARROLL: You're referring to the

7 four hundred eighteen million dollars that the

8 campaign is supporting --

9 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

10 Yes.

11 MS. CARROLL: -- to be used from the

12 federal stimulus money for the increase in

13 basic ed, and that is clearly our position and

14 our priority. There is a lot of discussion

15 about a cliff, and I find it interesting that

16 the budget proposed by the house -- or by the

17 senate, excuse me, is using seven hundred

18 twenty-eight million dollars this year, so

19 that may be a higher cliff than the four

20 hundred eighteen million of new money.

21 The -- the federal stimulus dollars,

22 we believe, were given to the states in order

23 to allow them to move forward with their

24 programs. And I believe it was the hope of

25 the federal government and clearly the hope of 94 1 the state that given two years with this

2 additional support from the federal

3 government, that this will give the economy in

4 the commonwealth a chance to begin to recover

5 on its own. And, you know, nobody can predict

6 what's going to happen in two years, but

7 clearly it is money that would, in two years,

8 need to be supported by state money.

9 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

10 Thank you.

11 And for the last, I know, Lisa, was

12 not your testimony but raised a few red flags

13 that -- the testimony that you presented

14 raised some red flags, and I was wondering

15 if -- well, I guess I could probably ask you

16 later, Baruch, but I'm really concerned that

17 there were so many red flags raised.

18 Do you have any comments about them?

19 Why they -- why some of these weren't

20 covered? Because I thought we really did a

21 good job of getting all the stakeholders to

22 the table to try and address a lot of the

23 concerns before our bill was introduced.

24 I know I'm putting you on the spot,

25 but I just wanted to give you an opportunity. 95 1 MS. LANDIS: I actually was not

2 involved in those meetings at that time, but

3 I'd be more than happy to get that information

4 for you and the committee.

5 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

6 Thank you very much.

7 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Representative

8 Longietti.

9 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you,

10 Mr. Chairman.

11 Just to kind of pick up on some

12 testimony Miss Carroll presented, as I

13 understand the budget process that we're in

14 right now, it involves primarily the leaders

15 of both caucuses of the house and the senate

16 and the governor's folks. And when you look

17 at that, naturally you would consider the

18 senate Republicans as a partial driving force,

19 since they're in majority, and house Democrats

20 as a partial driving force, since we're in the

21 majority, although not as great -- as great of

22 a degree as the Republicans are.

23 But we've seen their bill, Senate

24 Bill 850. You expressed concerns about that,

25 and we have concerns about that, in the fact 96 1 that the fiscal stabilization fund money would

2 not be used to fund year two of the basic-

3 education funding formula.

4 Given that, do we know where the

5 governor is on this bill, governor's people?

6 I have not heard anything. This is somewhat

7 silent. And I'm just wondering, this budget

8 negotiation, if you have two out of the three

9 drivers not moving this, it makes you wonder

10 where we're headed.

11 MS. LANDIS: I would suggest that

12 perhaps Representatives Sturla and McIlvaine

13 Smith might be the best to answer that

14 question, having been in these conversations.

15 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: If I could,

16 the discussions I've had with the

17 administration at this point, I mean, their

18 position in their budget was that they were

19 going to do a zero percent increase for

20 special ed in this year's budget.

21 They also believe that the federal

22 dollars related specifically to special ed are

23 prescriptive about where that goes for the

24 school district, although we believe that it

25 can be applied to this formula and counts so 97 1 that we can get at least get the funding

2 formula established and set up as a mechanism

3 to continue in future years.

4 Additionally, the stabilization funds

5 of which the governor's budget proposal uses,

6 I think, 1.1 billion of the 1.7 billion of the

7 stabilization funds for basic ed in the next

8 two years, that would leave about six hundred

9 million dollars in that stabilization fund,

10 and that, the remaining -- those remaining

11 dollars can be used for special ed also. So

12 if you did the thirty-two million dollars in

13 year one and the sixty-four million dollars in

14 year two, as proposed in this funding

15 mechanism, you would use ninety-six million of

16 the six hundred million that are remaining in

17 that stabilization fund.

18 So it's our belief that it can be

19 done either way. Whether we can convince the

20 governor that it should be used there or

21 whether he wants to use it somewhere else, I

22 mean, obviously, I think we need to do --

23 continue with the basic-ed funding formula

24 also, but there's still plenty of money for

25 the special ed, and when you look at any cliff 98 1 that might be created, the cliff in basic ed

2 would be 1.1 billion in year three. The cliff

3 in special ed would be ninety-six million.

4 So it's really sort of small change

5 compared to some of the other things we're

6 talking about related to education, and we

7 have been trying to make those arguments to

8 the administration. Making some headway, I

9 won't say that they're ready to announce that

10 they're going to embrace the proposal yet, but

11 I think we're getting close.

12 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: You're

13 fighting the good fight.

14 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH: And

15 if I could just add that it tends to happen

16 that the governor's office will get behind

17 something -- actually he'll get in front of

18 something once it starts to move, so if we can

19 get this moving, he will jump in.

20 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Or jump over.

21 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH:

22 Yeah.

23 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Representative

24 O'Neill.

25 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: Thank you 99 1 very much.

2 I just want to clarify one point I

3 believe that both Jane and Lisa had made. You

4 oppose putting into statute the existing

5 Department of Education regulations concerning

6 special ed. Is that what I'm hearing from the

7 two of you?

8 MS. CARROLL: You're hearing that the

9 campaign position would like the committee to

10 take some further look at that. There are

11 some members in the campaign that feel that --

12 that once something is put in statute, some

13 people say it's harder to change it and other

14 people say it's easier to change it.

15 But we just believe that it's an area

16 that should have some further deliberation by

17 the committee.

18 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: And are you

19 referring to the federal regulations that are

20 passed down to us?

21 MS. CARROLL: There are regulations

22 dealing with the plan submission, the

23 department regulations dealing with plan

24 submission --

25 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: 100 1 Pennsylvania's department.

2 MS. CARROLL: Correct, Pennsylvania's

3 department, which this bill is talking about

4 putting into statute. And we're saying, look

5 at that carefully, because sometimes when you

6 have something in statute, it's -- if the

7 federal regulations were to change, which

8 would have an impact on the state program, it

9 would be harder to make the changes to

10 coincide with the federal changes.

11 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: And

12 currently it goes through our regulatory

13 process.

14 MS. CARROLL: Correct.

15 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: Okay. Thank

16 you.

17 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'd like to thank

18 you for your presentations. And announce that

19 this committee will meet next week, on the

20 13th of May, 9 o'clock, in this room, and you

21 will be receiving an information agenda from

22 us.

23 I'd like to thank all those who

24 participated, and I think we are at the

25 beginning of an extended dialogue on this 101 1 issue. And thank you for your presentation.

2 Also want to thank our recorder for

3 her diligence today.

4 And the meeting will stand

5 adjourned.

6 10:43 a.m.

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25 102 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

2 I HEREBY CERTIFY that I was present

3 upon the hearing of the above-entitled matter

4 and there reported stenographically the

5 proceedings had and the testimony produced;

6 and I further certify that the foregoing is a

7 true and correct transcript of my said

8 stenographic notes.

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10 ______BRENDA J. PARDUN 11 Court Reporter Notary Public 12

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