Shapiro, education and performance so far as governor
There are a lot of DU threads about Gov Shapiro.
I lived in Phila when Shapiro was just starting his political career and have watched him for awhile. The defining characteristic to me is his pragmatic politics. His religion has never influenced his governance whether as a MontCo commissioer, state rep, in state house leadership, as state attorney general or as governor. In fact, it's never even been an issue in any of his campaigns. There's no debate that Shapiro has methodically plotted his political career. He's a very smooth operator, not meant in a perjorative sense. He is excellent at governing and getting things done. He knows how to make government work to make positive change. I never doubted he'd one day be governor.
I've read many comments about Shapiro and vouchers, but those skate past the complexity of public education in the state. Like most states, PA relies primarily on local property taxes to fund local schools. Predictably, the higher income areas have better schools because property taxes raise more money than in lower income school districts. Although the state gives annual basic education funding, it's relatively meager compared to other states and does little to equalize disparity among schools. Years ago, a lawsuit was filed claiming the school funding formula was unconstitutional. After wending it's way through the state court system, the state supreme court decided the case in favor of the plantiffs that the way schools are funded is unconstitutional. Under Gov Wolf, the state legislature did pass legislation amending the school funding formula, but that formula has only been applied to new basic education funding that is over and above what was already budgeted. For ex, if the basic funding was 100M and new funding is 120M, only the 20M is distributed under the new formula.
Further complicating matters is the Philadelphia school district. It's one of the largest in the US and the only one in the state that is run at the county level since Phila is a city that its own county. Phila has a long tradition of parochial schools and parents opting to send their kids to them rather than to the neighborhood public school for both education and safety reasons. When Paul Vallas was school superintendent, he pushed for charter schools as way to pull students away from parochial schools and back into public schools. There are also some excellent private schools, mostly run by Quakers, just outside Philadelphia. This is why some Democratic legislators from Philadelphia support charter schools and vouchers.
Finally, the charter school law itself is poorly written and contains little accountablity when charter school students fare poorly on standardized tests.
Education isn't just some black and white partisan issue here. Fair funding crosses political and social lines. There are plenty of small school districts in "red" areas of the state that are struggling as much as districts in the old mill towns of western and NE Pa from insuffiicent basic state funding. These districts also lose funding that attaches to each student who enrolls in a charter school. To be honest,
no one really knows how to solve the education problem in light of the state supreme court's ruling.
= new reply since forum marked as read
gov. wolf started reforms and gov. shapiro continues
to build on them. pa now has more dems in power. I hope
casey wins again and that the democratic party continues
to grow and help the people of pa.
Regarding Shapiro - he is someone who didn't just pop up in elected office. It's fascinating to see that he literally "worked his way up and across" various elected offices over the past 3 decades. Right out of school, he worked as an aide for several Senators (Carl Levine and Bob Torricelli, and a Rep. - Pete Deutsch).
His entry into elected office happened in the early '00s when light red Montgomery County was slowly going purple with the ground-breaking election of Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky to the-then 13th Congressional District (PA-13) in the '90s, which finally broke the Congressional shutout of a seat for Montco Dems. She eventually lost that seat to GOPer Jon Fox, but that set the stage for others like Shapiro, to make serious runs for office there.
Shapiro eventually ran against Fox for a state House seat in the area, after Fox lost his Congressional seat to another Democrat - Joe Hoeffel (who Shapiro also worked for). He eventually left the state House to run for Montgomery County Commissioner, which was then majority-R (and included Tweety's brother) and helped to "break" it to make it majority-D with the vaunted Val Arkoosh, who ran with him for 2 (D) seats.
One of my sisters lives in Montco and was living there when that historic "break" came for the Commissioners so given that I literally live a couple blocks from the Montco border in Philly, I got to follow what was going on there over the past 20 years or so. My doctors are all there and I shop there, plus got my car there, so I keep track of both sides of the county border.
He eventually propelled himself into the PA Attorney General race in 2016 and was so instrumental in thwarting the madness of the many lawsuits that happened in PA (both state and federal) surrounding the 2020 Presidential election. I think people forget how often he was appearing on outlets like MSNBC giving people updates on what was happening in the state regarding those suits (particularly Paxton's crap), and also appearing as a Democratic party surrogate.
I recall after winning his 2nd term as AG in 2020, his eventually making the decision as to whether to run for Senator or Governor in 2022 and he opted for Governor, allowing for the populist Fetterman to go for the Senate (and both won their respective races).
What people don't realize is that during his 2020 run for AG re-election, he actually outperformed Biden in terms of votes cast, having picked up a couple thousand more with a crossover vote of GOP -
And regarding this -
There are a couple historic and well-known Quaker schools right here IN Philly - notably Germantown Friends and the biggy - Friend Select (growing up, our nextdoor neighbor's kids went to Friends Select).
The issue of Charter Schools and vouchers actually crosses demographics, which leads back to the horrible funding situation of the urban schools in the state - notably Philly schools. The quest for alternatives cut across both religion and race, as you have a majority-black public school system with some parents seeking alternatives to the for-cost Parochial system (or as they have now re-dubbed themselves - the "Archdiocesan schools" ), and wanting a more "cultural" experience that they believed was more conducive to the education of their children. And that group formed a pretty powerful lobby to push for Charter Schools and vouchers.
There have been many fits and starts with this - particularly with some engaged in fraud and/or not able to get/remain certified, nor able to move the needle in terms of educational outcomes.
If anything, the bottom line is that this has been a multigenerational, century-long problem that is almost intractable because the rot has set in so deep, it would be difficult to heal from it.
As an anecdote to the disparities - my niece, who just turned 18 this year and grew up in Montco from birth to current time, is living in a township that built not ONE but TWO brand new schools during her lifetime. The township (with multiple towns as part of it) has a population of 20,000, with 2 elementary schools, 1 middle school, and a high school. One of the elementary schools and the middle school, were replaced with the new facilities, literally from the ground up. Meanwhile in Philly, with neighborhoods that are the same size including the one I grew up in, students, teachers, and staff labor in piece of junk century old buildings with faulty heating, little or no air-conditioning, no potable water, and full of asbestos.
This is the backdrop that undergirds much of the rancor.