News
Shovel-ready schools: Use the stimulus to build futures for our kids
Op-Ed by Executive Director Susan Gobreski
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
By Susan Gobreski
The federal government has sent a clear message: Improving our education system must be a national priority. An unprecedented amount of money is coming to Pennsylvania to be spent on education. We must spend it well.
Everybody depends on a quality public education system, whether they have children in public schools or not. We want our neighbors to get good jobs and buy houses. We want people to earn good wages and pay taxes. We want the workforce to be strong and well paid when we collect Social Security. We want fewer dollars paying for social services and prisons, which means equipping people for self-sufficiency and responsibility.
We don’t pay merely to educate our own children, we pay so we can live in an educated society. Education is critical for a middle-class life and a chance to get ahead; it strengthens the economy for individuals and communities.
A recent report, “Pennsylvania’s Best Investment: The Social and Economic Benefits of Public Education” (Penn State University) released by the Education Law Center, makes the case for the benefits of education in Pennsylvania. Some highlights:
- Average public health costs for dropouts are $2,700 per person vs. $1,000 for high school graduates and $170 for college graduates.
- The cost of incarcerating someone is $31,900 per year vs. the $8,698 annual cost of providing a student what is defined as an “adequate” education.
- The state share of total education spending in Pennsylvania has fallen from more than 50 percent in 1975 to only 36 percent in 2007.
A 2007 study showed that 474 out of 501 Pennsylvania school districts did not meet the basic adequacy level for per-pupil spending that would allow students to meet proficiency standards. In 2008 the governor and the Legislature agreed to increase state funding over six years, in accordance with revenue growth projections. As the economic crisis spread, far fewer dollars were proposed than needed to meet the second-year targets. Enter the stimulus.
“The down payment [of stimulus funds] actually builds a lot of the proposed ‘education house,’ ” wrote Bob Wise, the former West Virginia governor who is now president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, in The New York Times. Which is to say that the stimulus money is supposed to create the models and structure to improve our education system and prepare our children for the future.
Education is a “shovel ready” project: Its existing infrastructure needs a hearty dose of capital to update itself and reach new heights, which, in turn, can create more innovation, more wage earners, more high-quality jobs, more wealth and thus more capital.
Recent polls show that the public supports stimulus funding, although everyone wants results. The public sees that we have an opportunity in this crisis and that money spent wisely can change lives for the better.
So here are some questions for the governor and the Legislature as they oversee the spending of Pennsylvania’s stimulus money:
Will they fund transformational change? Will they follow through on their commitment to provide basic educational funding for all children in Pennsylvania? Might they even be able to accelerate the timetable?
Once the money is invested, we should hold them accountable at next year’s election by asking these questions:
Has Pennsylvania reduced its high-school dropout rate? Have all schools—rural, urban and suburban—benefited from innovative new programs? Are they producing more job- and college-ready graduates? Have they used the money to build our “educational house?”
President Obama said: “In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite.”
For generations, the American Dream meant knowing that our children would be better off. It is time to return to that kind of future.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the executive director of Education Voters PA, a nonprofit education-advocacy organization.