Philly School Funding

Philly School Funding

For my topic, I will be researching and hopefully positively contributing to Philadelphia school funding.  I am interested in this because I personally go to a public school in Philadelphia, who is struggling due to the lack of funding in our schools.  Currently, according to an article on the Education Week website, the school districts deficit is about 216 million dollars.  The school district plans on raising the cities sales tax to cover only half of that.

The states previous governor, Thomas Corbett, caused many problems for schools by giving tax breaks to large companies instead of money towards schools.  Our new governor.  Our current governor, Tom Wolf has been more compliant in supporting the school system, but the damage has been, and our schools are facing a crisis.  Here is a look at where the money in Philadelphia schools is being spent.

Almost no money is being spent on important extra utilities such as safety, food services, and transportation.   And, even with 45% of the money going towards instruction, there were still many lay-offs, especially for teachers with positions considered more minor or less necessary.

I am wondering the main ways I can help school funding, because although the problem is a lack of money, my donations would not go very far.  I will talk to teachers and students who have experience with this issue to say how they contribute.  I will do my best to spread awareness of the topic, however I think most people around me are aware of the problem because it affects them as well.  I don’t feel informed enough to design my own plan on how to fund the school system, because I am not sure of a fair way of raising the kind of money needed.      

Philadelplhians have a very bad view of public schools.  A survey showed that only 18% of people have a positive view of the schools, while most others see it as “poor”.  However, studies have shown that over 85% of teachers are competent in their teaching, meaning the problem lies elswhere.  America puts more money into their school systems than many other countries whose students excell beyond ours.  Therefore, the problem does not reside entirely within the school, but rather the personal lives of the people.  Unfortunately, I cannot change everyones lives, and make them richer.  So, I will use an interview as a way to come up with ideas of how to

benefit schools.

I wonder if any students in past years have chosen the same topic I am doing.  If I find out about someone who did, I wonder what I should ask them so they could help me with my project.  As the project goes on, I hope I thoroughly learn all the information I will need for this project about my topic, because it is useful and very relevant information.

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