Governor Shapiro bragged in his budget address last month about investing “$11 billion in public education for the first time ever.” What he failed to mention is that the return on that investment and prior Covid-related funds has been abysmal.

The first article in this series focused on the low PSSA standardized test scores with only 40 percent of elementary and middle school students proficient in Math and only 53 percent proficient in English Language Arts. The second one detailed how Pennsylvania scored an A in funding for education and a D in educational outcomes.

These sobering numbers require a serious analysis of our education system and its funding. This final piece focuses on solutions to address the educational and fiscal crisis in our Commonwealth. 

First: throwing more money at this problem is not the answer. Instead, I am proposing four programs to cut and four initiatives to add in order to improve academic outcomes for all students in the state without spending more money. And every penny of taxpayer dollars should be spent on programs and initiatives that either have evidence to support improved academic performance or be used for a pilot study to determine if they work.

Programs to cut

Free for all breakfast 

Free for all really means reduced resources to the most needy students, as I explained last year. A vast majority of parents can afford to provide breakfast for their children, and they do not need, nor in many cases want, a handout from the government. And why should those families who truly qualify for free breakfast be forced to pay taxes to feed those who don’t need it?

Yet, Shapiro pushed to allocate over $46 million to this program his first year in office and continued to advocate in his budget address last month, touting the number of free meals served regardless of family income. “We’re starting to meet the needs of our students, including serving nearly 92 million free breakfasts to school kids last year.”

The $46 million could probably be cut in half, at least, and still provide breakfast to needy students.

Administrative Bloat

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) reports approximately 20 percent of professional positions across Pennsylvania school districts are administrative. Titles include principal, supervisor, social worker, director, counselor, and coordinator. While many of these positions are essential to a well-functioning school, there are likely positions that could be cut.

According to Commonwealth Foundation (CF), a Pennsylvania think tank, administrative positions are growing exponentially while student enrollment across the state continues to decline.

“The largest growth was in all other categories of ‘professional staff’ — including administrators, coordinators, and ‘other professional staff.’ Public schools added 9,044 non-teacher professional staff, a growth rate of 39 percent.”

CF reports the average administrative salary at $111,000 annually. With that salary level and the growth of these positions, school districts could potentially save millions of dollars per year with nominal cuts.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs

DEI programs are a controversial topic, and yet, many if not all, local school districts spend taxpayer dollars on expensive trainings and curricula. For example, West Chester Area School District (WCASD) spent over $400,000 with just one vendor over a ten-year period. A parent submitted a Right to Know request regarding equity trainings in the district and received this document detailing invoices paid to Pacific Education Group (PEG).

PEG’s Courageous Conversation provides “training, coaching and consulting services for millions of racial equity leaders around the world.” The services are expensive and there is not a single reference to any research demonstrating a positive impact on academic outcomes. 

In addition to school districts spending money on DEI programs, the state expends funds as well. In 2023, PDE contracted with the Center for Black Educator Development for $350,000 to “achieve educational equity and racial justice by rebuilding the national Black teacher pipeline.” 

Founded by Sharif El-Mekki, the Center promotes the idea, “teaching is activism.” I uncovered the contract amount through a Right to Know request, and undoubtedly there are many more of these types of programs funded with taxpayer dollars. 

Social Emotional Learning programs

This is another line item where school districts spend a lot of money with little to no documented academic outcomes. PDE defines SEL as “the social and emotional skills students need to empower themselves to successfully navigate relationships within their family, school, post-secondary education, and/or career as well as within the global marketplace.” And while the concept of SEL is not necessarily nefarious, the programs and curricula are not helping Pennsylvania students succeed academically and often have a political agenda.

For example, CASEL, one of the leaders in SEL programs emphasizes a social justice approach in schools. “SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.”

A parent in Haverford School District learned from multiple Right to Know requests that the district has spent at least $200,000 over the past several years on DEI and SEL programs, including $33,000 to CASEL. Alexis Pasternak believes this is just the tip of the iceberg as there are likely many other expenditures that have not been asked about.

“I feel like there is plenty right in front of people but they aren’t asking about it,” said Pasternak. “People need to get curious about how their money is being spent and what is not being addressed. All of this money could go to supplies for teachers or something related to academics.”

Programs to add

Eliminate Cell Phones in School

One of the least expensive, most effective initiatives that Governor Shapiro and the legislature could enact immediately is to eliminate cell phones in public schools. Eight states, both red and blue, have already implemented the ban, including California, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.

Last year, Jonathan Haidt wrote in The Anxious Generation about the monumental negative impacts for children and adolescents as a result of prolonged cell phone use. He suggests skipping expensive programs, like SEL, in favor of a simple, inexpensive decision to eliminate cell phones in school.

“To address the widespread anxiety in this generation, there are two big things that schools could do using mostly resources they already have. These are phone-free schools and more free play.” 

Haidt’s views are supported by former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, who called for a warning label on social media platforms last year.

“Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences,” wrote Murthy in an op-ed. “The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours.”

Reading and Handwriting instruction

Every school district in the state should be required to teach reading using phonics, the evidence-based model. John McWhorter, a Columbia University linguistics professor, explained in his book, Woke Racism, that one of the most important strategies for combating racism is to teach kids to read using a phonics methodology rather than a “whole word method.”

“This may seem an inside-baseball issue, but it is essential to getting past race in America,” wrote McWhorter. “Generations of black kids, disproportionately poor, have been sideswiped by inadequate reading instruction. To find reading a chore puts a block on learning math, or anything else, from the page and is a perfect pathway to finding ‘the school thing’ tiresome and irrelevant. The impact on life trajectory is clear.”

With only slightly more than half of our students proficient in reading, we need to get back to basics and teach reading the old-fashioned way — by using phonics.

A related issue is the teaching of handwriting. With the majority of instruction and assignments completed on a laptop or tablet, students no longer learn to print letters or write in cursive. I wrote about the research showing brain activity is different for children who learn to write letters manually versus those who learn to write by tracing or using a keyboard.

By returning instruction and assignments to paper and pencil, we can expect to see gains in handwriting and subsequently reading and writing proficiency. It serves an additional purpose to limit screen time for students and is not expensive to implement.

Revamped Teacher Preparation Programs

One of the biggest challenges facing school districts today is the recruitment, hiring, and retention of quality teachers. One of the contributing factors is the lack of comprehensive teacher preparation programs. In Pennsylvania, teachers must complete a four year degree in an Education major and pass an exam to obtain certification.

Yet, upon examination of the courses required by local universities, there is a dearth of coursework in pedagogy — the method and practice of teaching.

Take for example, Temple University. It offers an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education, requiring 83 credits in education and related courses, and a total of 120 credits to graduate. Among those classes, there are only two required courses focused solely on “language and literacy development and instruction.” While the program provides three practicum experiences, pedagogical courses in reading are very limited.

How can we expect new teachers to provide instruction in reading to elementary learners with only two specific courses in language and literacy development?

Another requirement for graduation is completion of two courses under the heading, “Intellectual Heritage.” The course description reads as a politically flavored endeavor with questions like, “what behaviors and practices perpetuate injustice? How do power and privilege define our capacity to make change?” While there may be some justification for the discussion, it should not be given equal weight as pedagogical coursework.

If we want to fundamentally change our public school system and its current trajectory, a primary starting point is where teachers learn their craft — university teacher preparation programs.

School Choice

Governor Shapiro ran a platform to support scholarships to students in failing schools, and then he turned his back on our most vulnerable students by abandoning the initiative. 

The reality is that public schools simply cannot meet the needs of every single student. It is an impossible situation, so given that fact, parents and students must have options when they cannot afford private school tuition. 

Black Pastors United for Education has consistently called out the governor for his failure to support minority and low socioeconomic students. While the Lifeline Scholarships are the tip of the potential iceberg for school choice options, they could substantially impact students whose futures are bleak in their current circumstances.

Maybe rather than funding free breakfast for all, we target that money to the most needy students and fund the Lifeline Scholarship program instead?

I don’t propose to have all the answers, but there are evidence-based, cost-effective solutions we can implement right away to aggressively work towards 100 percent proficiency for every single student. What we are currently doing is not working, and we need dramatic change to create stellar results. And that doesn’t have to mean spending more money.

Beth Ann Rosica resides in West Chester, has a Ph.D. in Education, and has dedicated her career to advocating on behalf of at-risk children and families. She covers education issues for Broad + Liberty. Contact her at barosica@broadandliberty.com.