Altoona Mirror. March 15, 2024

Pennsylvania school districts and the communities in which they reside could benefit from a special, mandatory four-session course required by the state Legislature and Department of Education, targeted for one of the junior high grades and spaced out over the course of the school year.

The lead front-page article in last weekend’s Mirror — “Area sees increase in juvenile crime” — provided plenty of justification for such a special learning experience.

The logical question emanating from that article is whether the Legislature and Governor’s Office would endorse the idea and take meaningful steps to formally implement it as soon as practicable, preferably by fast-tracking the course’s preparation and providing funding to help districts surmount any local-level financial constraints that might exist.

The issue is serious enough to warrant such a get-it-done-quickly strategy. No community — not Altoona, not anywhere else in Blair County, not anywhere else in Pennsylvania, period — should have to deal with such an undermining situation.

Educating schoolchildren early-on about what crime-solving and criminal justice really are all about might go a long way toward helping young people avoid getting on the wrong side of the law.

What is being advocated here is worth a try, if not permanently then authorized initially as a pilot project — an experiment — covering a specific number of years, to be followed by a decision on whether it should be made permanent.

Last weekend’s article began: “Several teenagers charged as adults in a New Year’s Day shooting in the city (Altoona) are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, said local officials, who admit juvenile violence is a growing trend.”

The following paragraph mentioned Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks’ observation that the lack of available bed spaces, probation officers and certain other resources has been making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to detain and address acts of violence by juveniles who see little — if any — consequences for committing serial crimes.

“That’s been a huge part of the problem,” Weeks said, adding that without consequences when they commit a crime, juveniles often increase the seriousness of their crime.

“They don’t believe that there’s a consequence because that’s what the system is showing them,” Weeks said.

Later in the article, Patrick Tomassetti, Altoona Police Department public relations officer, is quoted as saying shooting incidents involving juveniles are becoming a major concern.

Meanwhile, in that weekend article, Clark Sheehe, probation office supervisor, expanded on Tomassetti’s point, saying that although Blair County is considered a fifth-class county, it is seeing the amount of juvenile crime cases a third-class county would normally handle.

About the sessions proposed at the top of this editorial:

The logical first session would do well to touch on the investigation of a crime, evidence-gathering and the pressures those with evidence feel, whether or not they disclose what they know. The second session could center on the arrest process, and the third, on the court proceedings.

Finally, the fourth session could deal with incarceration — what the guilty individual is realizing as he or she is locked up for however long.

The education option can be one of the easier, less-costly assets for addressing the growing juvenile crime problem here or anywhere else.

Unfortunately, it is not a cure-all, and more ideas need to be forthcoming.

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Scranton Times-Tribune. March 17, 2024

As the days get longer and the weather warms, our thoughts turn to spring pastimes like gardening, baseball and waiting in traffic as roadwork season kicks into gear.

The last is not necessarily a negative thing. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain, especially this spring, as a burst of federal funding spurs long-neglected infrastructure repairs.

In Schuylkill County, the long-awaited Frackville Grade project is finally underway. The $115 million project will rehabilitate a crumbling 4.4-mile section of Route 61 with $21 million coming from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in November 2021.

Any number of projects across Northeast Pennsylvania have been green-lighted or speeded up because of increased federal funding under the Infrastructure Law. In Scranton, work has begun on the replacement of the Green Ridge Street Bridge. And planning is underway to demolish the closed Water Street Bridge in Pittston and build a new one by 2026.

The “bipartisan” part of the law’s title is perhaps overblown, as only 19 of the 50 Republican senators at the time voted “aye.” In the House, controlled in 2021 by Democrats, only 13 GOP members approved. Of course, that hasn’t stopped many of them from issuing press releases and attending ribbon cuttings when these important projects land in their districts.

But in the spirit of bipartisanship, let’s focus on the good the $1 trillion bill has wrought. As of the end of February, $14.7 billion in Infrastructure Law funding has been announced for 445 projects in Pennsylvania. Those projects go well beyond roads and bridges, paying for improvements in Internet access, water systems, public transit, airports and the electrical grid.

Those are investments in the commonwealth’s and the nation’s future, facilitating trade, economic growth and opportunity. They show what we can still achieve if we work together in the spirit of democracy and compromise.

For too long, the U.S. neglected upkeep of the systems that allow us to prosper as “infrastructure weeks” came and went. The Infrastructure Law broke an impasse that was holding us back as other countries constructed modern airports, high-speed rail lines and robust telecommunications networks.

As we get deeper into this national election year, we should focus less on the rhetoric that divides us and more on the initiatives we can pursue together that will make us a stronger nation. And we should hold candidates at all levels accountable by insisting they address what they can achieve in office to further the common good, even if that means reaching across the aisle.

Because putting up with some painful bipartisanship in the short term, like enduring stalled traffic for a highway construction project, can lead to a better, brighter future.

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 18, 2024

Pennsylvania’s system for funding cyber charter schools sucks money out of public schools and deposits it in vast reserves for private online academies that simply do not work. Reforming this system is essential to any school funding reform in the commonwealth, and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposal is a good place to start: Cap cyber charter funding at $8,000 per pupil.

Currently, cyber charter schools are funded at the same rate as brick and mortar charter schools, an absurd arrangement that has allowed the online schools to amass comically huge reserves: over $250 million across the 14 organizations, and that was in 2022. The schools have seen massive growth since the COVID pandemic as parents reject traditional educational models, and with combined spending of nearly $17 million on advertising in 2021 and 2022, it’s clear they’re competing with each other, and with other schools, for lucrative students.

The state’s funding scheme, passed in 2002 and clearly obsolete, is also based on each pupil’s school district’s per-student spending. The idea is that public schools should be neither helped nor harmed by students choosing a charter school. But it also creates incentives to poach kids from districts that pay better — and not to take kids from those that don’t.

The two largest losers, unsurprisingly, are the school districts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But relative to their enrollments, PPS shells out a lot more to cyber charters than Philadelphia. That’s because, despite its atrocious outcomes, PPS is by far the best funded urban district in the state — and thus pays handsomely to charters who educate Pittsburgh pupils.

In PPS, all charters are taking a substantial $146 million cut of the public school budget this year — but if cyber charter funding were slashed to $8,000 per child, the district would retain about $13 million per year. That’s good, but it’s hardly enough to fix a budget that’s staring at negative reserves — that is, default — in 2025.

Meanwhile, across the rest of Allegheny County Mr. Shapiro’s $8,000 proposal would bring another $14 million per year back to public school coffers.

Generous funding of cyber charter programs might make sense if they produce substantially improved outcomes, but the opposite is true. Proficiency rates in cyber charters lag those in traditional public schools by 20% or more in every discipline and at every grade level. While cyber charters may work for some students, schools also learned during the COVID that, broadly speaking, online education is almost never an adequate alternative to in-person instruction.

Some charters do claim that the $8,000 proposal would cause them to close their doors. This is unlikely, given their vast reserves, but candid negotiations may result in a modest increase in the per student funding cap. That’s fine: The purpose isn’t to end cyber charters entirely, but to allow them to fulfill their limited purpose without unfairly burdening the system.

Right now, however, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Reform is necessary.

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LNP/LancasterOnline. March 13, 2024

No one wants to pay higher taxes.

But taxes go up when newspapers don’t hold local governments accountable, and governments can’t be held accountable without an assist from state laws requiring transparency.

A study by University of Notre Dame finance professor Pengjie “Paul” Gao in 2018 found local governments spend more on borrowing costs, wages and other expenses when local newspapers aren’t there to keep an eye on them.

Newspaper reporters attend public meetings, query unexplained executive sessions and file public records requests. Their intent, always, is to inform readers about how taxpayer dollars are spent and how government decisions are made.

Several years ago, LNP ‘ LancasterOnline waged a court battle to obtain records about how the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office used assets seized in drug forfeiture cases. This newspaper prevailed, with help from the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice, and brought thousands of pages of those records into public view.

This newspaper has sought police body camera footage and the names of individuals seeking to fill judicial vacancies.

LNP ‘ LancasterOnline recently obtained, through a public records request, a copy of a settlement between Conestoga Township and a former township secretary who accused longtime Republican township Supervisor John Berry of workplace harassment and retaliation.

This newspaper learned that the township paid the former secretary $45,000 — $31,500 went to her and $13,500 went to her lawyers.

Berry, who’s been charged with theft of a township air compressor worth $1,400, resigned his elected position March 1, according to LNP ‘ LancasterOnline’s Jade Campos. (And Berry has been terminated as township roadmaster, a salaried position.)

This newspaper also discovered through a Right-to-Know Law request that Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro spent more than $92,000 in public funds to replace appliances and acquire new furnishings for the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg in the first six months of his term. LNP ‘ LancasterOnline’s Jaxon White reported that the purchases included kitchen items from a Reading-based supplier totaling $35,000 and a $4,500 “power-reclining” sectional sofa with heat and massage features. As we wrote in a Jan. 3 editorial, “It’s very easy to spend other people’s money — state lawmakers do it all the time, too. The least we taxpayers could get in return would be a detailed, transparent and accessible accounting.”

Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law and Sunshine Act are for everyone, not just journalists. The state’s Office of Open Records ( openrecords.pa.gov ) offers valuable guidance about how to use these laws constructively.

Left to their own devices, government officials too often find that secrecy is easier than transparency, and have to be reminded just what state laws say.

This is why LNP ‘ LancasterOnline has been pressing for the release of the names of minors whose deaths are examined by the Lancaster County coroner.

Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni is fighting a December ruling by the Office of Open Records ordering him to publicly disclose the name of a 3-year-old boy who fatally shot himself with his father’s firearm in the southern end of Lancaster County in October.

Diamantoni is defying Pennsylvania’s open-records law, which clearly states that the details of any death investigated by a county coroner are a matter of public record. And those details include the name of the deceased individual, as well as the cause and manner of death, regardless of age.

As we wrote in a Jan. 14 editorial, when “a child dies in circumstances that are open to question or interpretation … there’s a public interest in ensuring access to information about that death. Accurate and complete reporting serves to keep misinformation or conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors from taking root. And it sheds light on the response of law enforcement and the judicial system.”

Society, we noted, “cannot formulate the necessary policies, laws and strategies to keep children safe if it’s not fully informed about the circumstances in which children die.”

The journalists of LNP ‘ LancasterOnline, and the newspaper’s owner, WITF, are spurred by a commitment to the public’s right to know. They are trained to effectively utilize state transparency laws to cast light on the inner workings — and spending — of state, county and local government, including school districts.

They do this every week, not just during Sunshine Week. But this is a good time to consider where we’d be without local journalists pressing for greater transparency — and to remind elected officials that democracy functions best in sunlight, not darkness.