In Philadelphia debate, Corbett and Wolf spar again on education cuts

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The very first question to Gov. Tom Corbett in his debate with challenger Tom Wolf went straight to the point: Are schools better off in Pennsylvania since he took office?

The issue of education took up the first 17 minutes of the candidates’ hour-long debate on Wednesday morning. Starting at 8 a.m. in the studios of KYW Radio, it was broadcast during morning drive time.

In a round of lightning-fast questioning marked by verbal zingers and frequent interruptions, the two men largely repeated their campaign positions on the issue, which, polls have shown, dominates voter concerns.

Corbett blamed unions and his predecessors for the predicament that many Pennsylvania school districts find themselves in: rising property taxes often accompanied by draconian cuts in personnel and services. Some 27,000 jobs have been cut from state school districts over the last several years.

Wolf blamed Corbett and said that if he became governor, he would send more money to school districts from the state by imposing a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas and creating a graduated income tax with higher rates on those in upper-income brackets. He said class sizes would go down.

Even as protesters rallied outside demanding — and praying for — a fair education funding formula, the particular plight of the Philadelphia School District wasn’t given much direct attention.

Except, that is, when Corbett brought up that the city got more state education aid than the four surrounding suburban counties combined, even though the four counties collectively have more students.

He said the School District of Philadelphia gets $1.3 billion in state basic education aid, accounting for 53 percent of its expenditures, while the four surrounding suburban counties get less.

"How much does each school district deserve … how much is enough?" Corbett asked.

The governor noted that a legislative commission is now working on devising a new funding formula.

Wolf said, "We did have a fair formula. You eliminated it."

Corbett especially took aim at teachers’ unions, which he said were "pushing for additional money" at a time of "tight, limited budgets," implying that this was a reason for the job losses.

At one point, when Wolf interjected, "You have not been a friend to education," Corbett shot back: "I’ve not been a friend to the unions."

In answer to the question of whether schools were better off during his administration, the governor cited changes to how teachers are evaluated, the burgeoning charter school sector, a new state system for rating schools, and an increase in state special-education funding. This year the legislature approved a $20 million hike in the more than $1 billion appropriation, the first increase in six years.

Corbett said charter schools were "doing well" and said they give parents more choice. (However, he misspoke when he said that the two Philadelphia schools that just won federal Blue Ribbon designations were charters. One, Hill-Freedman, is a special-admission District school.)

Wolf said that he’d work to change the way charters are funded. Without going into specifics, he said that the current formula was not fair and was costing school districts hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Charter schools do serve as sources of innovovation … [but] we have constitutional mandate to make sure every child gets a good education." he said. "We have not" done that, Wolf said.

As he has throughout the campaign, Corbett vociferously denied that he had cut education spending, blaming decisions made before he took office for the reduced amounts sent to districts. The governor maintained that 14,000 of the 27,000 jobs were lost under Gov. Edward Rendell’s administration.

He said that the reductions were due to Rendell’s decision to replace some state aid with temporary federal stimulus dollars.He seemed to flummox Wolf when he claimed that Rendell’s own advisers admitted that doing so was a "risk."

Corbett also said that Rendell and other prior administrations — "legislators and governors, Democrats and Republicans" — were responsible for underfunding pensions. Out-of-control pension costs is what is driving the service cuts and rising property taxes in many school districts, he said.

Even as polls continue to show Wolf leading Corbett in the polls and education as a top issue in the race, Corbett maintained that his message is getting across and that "the tide is turning."

None of the questioners, nor Wolf, brought up other cuts to education that Corbett made not related to the federal stimulus funds. The biggest one was a more than $200 million line item that helped charter-heavy districts like Philadelphia deal with costs related to the expansion of the independent but taxpayer-funded charter schools. That decision alone cost Philadelphia, which has half the charters in the commonwealth, $100 million in state funds.