OFF+THE+FLOOR+-+Waiting+for+GovCo,+Part+Deux.+Vouchers,+education+reform.

= How did Gov. Corbett end up asking allies to oppose the charter school reform/EITC bill last week? A look inside the voucher/education reform negotiations last week. =

=By Peter L. DeCoursey= =//Published by Capitolwire//= =//12/20/11//=

=PHILADELPHIA (Dec. 20) – When the House GOP early last week began caucusing and counting votes to pass a voucher bill, as part of a comprehensive education package, the first count was depressing.= =Only 45 House Republican identified themselves as votes for vouchers.= =By last Wednesday, that count was up to 65, and House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, told Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration that if they could find 30 House Democrats, he could find 7 more Republicans and pass the bill.= =That seemed like a lot, but after all, Corbett called a voucher pilot program his “top priority.”= =Annmarie Kaiser, Corbett’s legislative secretary, told House GOP staff Corbett had 10 House Democrats. Which essentially means the administration had not, despite the governor's exhortations on the issue, added even a single new Democrat to the fold.= =And with Corbett in Philadelphia that day and unreachable to legislative leaders, who did the administration task with sitting down with Democrats and Republicans to bargain them into becoming voucher votes?= =Not Corbett. Top priority or not, weeks after he said he would meet with lawmakers and do “whatever I can” to enact vouchers for poor kids in bad schools, he was incommunicado in Philadelphia.= =Instead, lawmakers who were considered potential voucher votes, in either party, met with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley and staffer Andrew Ritter.= =Now Corbett trusts both Cawley and Ritter, and they are big players in his administration. And from Corbett's point of view, he may just have wanted their view of where things stood, since he knew vouchers was not happening this year.= =But 40 years of vouchers failing in the Pennsylvania Legislature are not going to end without the governor going all in, and personally working lawmaker after lawmaker, legislative leaders have told Corbett, again and again. Corbett needed to be seen and smelled wanting this issue, by swing lawmakers, to make the exercise fruitful for the future, if not now.= =Pro-voucher education groups knew that and were insulted that they needed Corbett and got Cawley. They think that personnel choice last week told them a lot more about where conservative education reform ranks for Corbett than any rally speech did.= =Legislative leaders have told the governor that any chance vouchers has depends on his making it his obsession. The governor says he understands that. But on Wednesday, the pattern of the governor doing very little to help his priorities – liquor store sales, vouchers, a limited, pro-business approach to regulating the Marcellus Shale – remained pristine.= =As of now, the Legislature is still waiting for the governor to tell them what he proposes on transportation, liquor store privatization, pension reform and other major issues.= =Even on the two issues where he laid out some specifics, education reform and Marcellus Shale, Corbett as we saw Wednesday, has neither worked hard nor achieved much in advancing those issues.= =So on pensions, privatization, transportation and other issues, the state is waiting for Corbett to lead by speaking. On education reform and Marcellus Shale, we are waiting for him to lead by taking action.= =And if Wednesday was typical, we will be waiting quite awhile.= =Because once it was clear that the voucher proposal had only 75 votes, the House GOP went back to Corbett, and said: we have the votes to pass the other two pieces of the plan, which changed the regulation and rules for charter schools, and the Educational Income Tax Credit.= =The EITC increased the state’s annual $75 million tax credit program over years to $200 million a year to pay for scholarships for public school students.= =The House GOP asked the administration: do you want us to vote the rest of the package?= =They say the administration said yes, then came back asking for an addition: that the House also pass their teacher evaluation plan, which would make student performance 50 percent of teacher evaluations.= =The administration says they simply said they wanted a vote only if the teacher evaluation plan was included.= =The teacher evaluation plan is a big change, moving student test scores from no part of teacher evaluation to half of it. The administration pilot program testing it out is still underway. The Senate has no plans to deal with it until next year.= =But the administration was hoping to pass this program through the House this week. The administration did vote counts and got allied groups to lobby the House to pass it. It was hoping to repeat its late-June success in shaving down the number of reasons a school board can raise taxes above the annual inflation rate, but this time with teacher evaluations.= =However, by Wednesday, House rules did not allow that such an amendment to be added to the education reform package bill without a 24-hour delay of the legislation.= =So the House GOP leaders replied, no, we aren’t doing that. They remain supportive of the teacher evaluation proposal, they said. But some House GOP lawmakers said if there are only 72 House GOP votes for vouchers because of teacher opposition, how many House Republicans are going to be for radically changing the way those teachers are fired, paid and judged?= =Every teacher knows they can get a year or two of bad-apple classes, and few want half their performance judged by who the principal - randomly or not - sends to their classes.= =But the administration kept pressing for action on that bill, while the House GOP moved to at least pass on Wednesday the charter reform and EITC parts of the bill.= =Shortly before debate on education reform package was to start, Kaiser told House aides the governor wanted the bill pulled.= =At that point, the two sides were thoroughly tired of each other, and the House GOP leaders decided they were going to go ahead and get a vote on the EITC/charter reform bill.= =Then, according to Corbett insiders, the governor’s office began to lobby its allies to vote against the bill, since it didn’t want the EITC/Charter bill to move forward without their priority, teacher evaluations.= =Ultimately, the charter/EITC bill was three votes short of winning as an amendment, before it became clear it would lose. Once that was clear, Smith held the board open to allow more members to jump off, since it was going to lose anyway.= =So, where is education reform, the governor’s top priority? The House only has the votes and interest to pass EITC and charter school reforms. The Senate and governor won’t pass those two until they get vouchers and, in the governor’s case, teacher evaluation reform.= =And teacher evaluation is going to be a major battle, while vouchers is still 15-20 votes short of ever passing.= =And the House GOP leaders are livid about the way this all fell out, and believe:= =1) The governor did not live up to his promise to personally involve himself except at the end, to embarrass them; and= =2) It is awfully hard to work with this governor.= =At some point, Corbett will want to get something done, perhaps Marcellus Shale, certainly his teacher evaluation plan, and he will have to deal. He will have to show up, make deals, work lawmakers personally, and manage to not drive the House and Senate GOP leaders crazy while that happens.= =As last Wednesday showed, we are still waiting for GovCo to show those capabilities.= 12/12 = = = = = = = = = = =News= =home=