Morning Shots

Contentious debate on reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has begun and the battle lines are drawn.  For the next few months, and maybe years, the debate will rage on testing, sanctions, spending, achievement gaps and how to label failing schools. Meanwhile, the debate on one of the most pressing issues—a rapidly increasing shortage of teachers—remains relatively silent. Even in crisis areas like post-Katrina Louisiana that suffer from crippling teacher shortages, education leaders are slow to fully leverage ways to recruit new teachers.

As is always the case in education battles, it is the students who suffer.  There are 3.2 million K-12 teachers in America, and the U.S. Department of Education reports “only” 2.5 percent are teaching on emergency waivers.  That sounds small, but it actually leaves 80,000 classrooms and at least 1.2 million students nationwide without a certified teacher.  The news for Louisiana and the rest of America is only going to get worse, eventually impacting our ability to compete in the global economy.

Consider the facts from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): In 1970, 25 percent of bachelors and masters degrees were earned in education compared to 14 percent in 2003. Further, in 2004, 8.4 percent of educators left teaching compared to 5.6 percent in 1990.  College students today are not going into teaching while at the same time, the baby-boomer teachers are retiring in record numbers.

The education establishment blames low teacher retention for the shortages.  We all want teachers to stay in the classroom longer, but improving retention is by no means an absolute solution to the teacher shortage.  Retention rates in all careers are declining. Today’s workforce is made up of career changers.  According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 18-40 year olds will switch jobs more

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I think that we have done for a lot for education this last three and a half years. , if it is giving kids more teachers, or expanding our school day, or creating more counselors and so on.  But the fact of the matter really is, and we have to realize that—and I think everyone has been writing about that lately—that our education system is dysfunctional.  What we are doing with all of those things that we have been doing is great, but it’s really all nibbling away at the edges.  It’s not taking the bite out of the big apple, which we ought to.

And I think this is why it was so important that we created this kind of a test, and studies, in the last 18 months.  We don’t even know who is in charge of education in this state.  We have the legislators that make decisions, we have the State Board of Education that makes decisions, we have the Secretary of Education, we have the School Superintendent, we have the Superintendent of Public Instruction, we have the local leaders, the board leaders, the local superintendents, all of those things.  And I think that Superintendent Roy Romer can tell you how difficult it is in order to really get things done in this state.

So it is a dysfunctional system, and it is really no different, I would say, than many other systems in our state are dysfunctional.  I think that we have seen, when I took over, if it is infrastructure, which was a big, big issue in California, that we didn’t do any infrastructure for three decades, it was just brushed under, and swept under the rug.  If it is, for instance, our health care system that we have, and has

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Today I am very pleased to be able to speak to you about our state’s exceedingly successful and popular corporate tax credit program that benefits Pennsylvania school children. Now in its sixth year, PA’s Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program is considered by many of your colleagues as one of our state’s biggest educational achievements of the past decade.

A Brief History

On May 7, 2001, by an overwhelming bi-partisan majority, Pennsylvania made history by becoming the first state to pass an education tax credit aimed at corporations. The EITC program, provides companies with up to a 90% tax credit for donations to non-profit scholarship or educational improvement organizations.

The initial size of the EITC program was $30 million – with $20 million being allocated to Scholarship Organizations (SOs) and $10 million to Educational Improvement Organizations (EIOs). SOs award scholarships to children all across Pennsylvania in order to assist them in attending the school of their choice – public, non-public or religious. EIOs fund innovative projects in public schools across the Commonwealth. Examples of innovative programs that have been funded through EITC donations are wireless computer labs and before and after school programs.

Eligible companies were able to take up to $100,000 in tax credits per each state fiscal year.

Due to overwhelming demand, in December 2003 the legislature doubled the maximum tax credit to $200,000, expanded the EITC program by $10 million and created a new $5 million pre-K EITC program.

In July of 2005, despite a very tight budgetary year in PA where funding for many programs remained flat or was even reduced, the legislature expanded the EITC program by adding an additional $4 million to the bring the total cap to $44 million.

Again in July of 2006, the legislature expanded the EITC program by adding an additional $10 million to bring

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