McKeesport+Rally+Urges+State+Funding+for+Schools

=By Patrick Cloonan= =//Published in the McKeesport Daily News//= =//5/6/11//= = = = = ="Rally in the Valley" came three months early this year.= =Actually, Thursday`s event wasn`t the anti-violence, anti-drugs rally that`s held each August, but instead a message to Republicans in the General Assembly to increase funding for public education in the 2011-12 state budget.= =Or, as state Rep. Bill Kortz, D-Dravosburg, led the crowd at McKeesport Area High School, "Rally in the valley!" The response from some 700 in the auditorium was, "Save our schools!"= =Officially, the event at MAHS was a town hall meeting about Gov. Tom Corbett`s budget proposal.= ="This is the biggest issue facing the commonwealth of Pennsylvania today," state Rep. Marc J. Gergely, D-White Oak, a former McKeesport Area school board president, said to open the meeting. "The cut affects 4-year-olds and extends to 21-year-olds. The governor didn`t miss any generation."= =A brief rally at the band shell in Renziehausen Park, the place where the August rally traditionally is held, preceded the meeting.= ="Gov. Corbett has decided to punish a lot of school districts," McKeesport Area teacher Joan Burns told 300 supporters there. "We are one of them. We are here tonight to send a message to him: No!"= =In Jefferson Hills recently and in other locations, Corbett has said the state is returning subsidies to 2008-09 levels with the end of federal stimulus funding.= ="It is a lie," Gergely said. "There is a million-dollar cut in the McKeesport (subsidy)."= =District officials said McKeesport will get $21.9 million in state funding for 2011-12. They said the district received $22.9 million in 2008-09, and had gotten $21.7 million in 2006-07.= =Other speakers said Corbett`s proposed budget does not allocate money to school districts the way it was given before passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.= ="The Democratic caucus is not only for more funding for education, but fair funding for education, from (kindergarten) through college," said House Appropriations Minority Chairman Joseph F. Markosek, D-Monroeville.= =Earlier this week, Markosek said revenue through April exceeded the state`s official estimate by $506 million.= =Because that revenue will be carried forward into the base for the 2011-12 budget estimate, Markosek said, "we have about a billion dollars more than was anticipated."= =Markosek also said he believes ARRA, or stimulus funding, led to an economic turnaround that caused the increase in revenue.= =Kortz released a list of "revenue streams available. One of them is Corbett`s new $2 billion Liberty Loan fund that includes $330 million in tobacco settlement money.= ="This is his private ‘walking around money` fund," Kortz said.= ="Our legislators need to balance the budget," Consortium for Public Education president Dr. Linda L. Croushore said. "But they need to do what is best for our kids."= ="It is time to stop talking and it is time to start doing," said Steel Valley teacher Steve Singer, a leader of Tell Everyone All Cuts Hurt, or TEACH, a collaborative movement of teachers, administrators and parents in the Homestead-Munhall-West Homestead district.= =Steel Valley teacher Jill Fleming-Salopek spoke of an encounter with Corbett at the recent Allegheny League of Municipalities meeting.= ="Steel Valley has been our inspiration," Burns said at Renzie Park to a group from TEACH in attendance, as well as representatives of Sto-Rox and other area districts.= ="We have others across the state who do not understand," Burns said. "Send them a message: Give us our money back. We are taxpayers, too."= =Other lawmakers in attendance included state Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Carrick, and Sen. James R. Brewster, D-McKeesport.= =Other speakers included Butch Santicola of the Pennsylvania State Education Association at the rally and various educators on scholastic and collegiate levels at the high school.= = = = Read more: [|McKeesport rally, town hall urge increase in state funds for schools - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review] [] =

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