Not All Kids Are All Right in Bucks County

2012 saw a recovery of sorts for Bucks County, with the median family income finally returning to 2008 levels, but there’s little relief in sight for children at the lower end of the economic spectrum.  A disproportionate number of children—nearly 9,000 total—in Bucks County live in poverty, and the situation continues to get worse.  Most troubling, not nearly enough are getting access to the benefits they need.

In Bucks County, children—especially those under the age of six—are more likely to be living in poverty than adults.  The poverty rate for all children is 25% higher than the rate for adults; the rate for young children is shockingly nearly 70% higher than the adult rate.  These figures are alarming, but what do they mean in real terms?  They mean that 1 in 7 children in Bucks County don’t have access to enough food to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  While there are resources to help combat the food crisis Bucks County currently faces, it is clear that not enough is being done to ensure they get to every child in need. 

Less than a quarter of Bucks County’s residents are children, but nearly 40% of its residents on Food Stamps (SNAP) are.  This is due to a 20% rise in the share of children in low-income families since 2008, in turn leading to a 43% increase in children receiving Food Stamps from FY2009-10 to FY2012-13.  With the 43% increase in children on Food Stamps, there was a corresponding 42% increase in students eligible for free and reduced-price school meals from 2008-12.  That, in and of itself, is not surprising.  It makes sense, since these are the same children we’re talking about.  But eligibility does not equal access.  Despite thousands more children needing free or reduced-price lunches, participation in the program actually fell 5% in the last five years.  And only 20% of low-income students received school breakfast in 2012.

 

For children, having enough nutritious food everyday should be a right, not a privilege.  Insufficient nutrition is one of the most basic and formidable challenges standing in the way of children’s well-being.  Children growing up without food security are more likely to experience higher rates of educational problems including missed days of school, suspension and the need to repeat a grade.  In Bucks County, more needs to be done to combat the rising numbers of food insecure children.  Nancy Morill, President of the Bucks County Women’s Advocacy Coalition agrees.  “Mothers across the County are doing everything they can to help their children grow,” she said.  “Bucks County Families are facing increasing needs in this time of economic stress, which we hope our federal and state elected officials recognize.”  As the County has started to pull itself out of the recession, there is no more important time to focus on its children.

 

Lack of State Investment Leaves Schools Struggling to Meet the Needs of Rising Number of Low-Income Students

Last month we showed the trend of rising share of low-income students in Delaware County and the challenges those students face in Delco’s public schools.  Today we’ll take a deeper look at the numbers and see what needs to be addressed and why the state is making matters worse.

The number of students in Delaware County eligible for free and reduced-price lunch jumped 18% between 2008 and 2012.  The impact has been felt particularly hard in Upper Darby, where a 30% increase since 2008 has resulted in nearly 6,800 qualifying students—almost 30% of all students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch in Delaware County.  Unfortunately, Upper Darby wasn’t the only district in Delco having to deal with a major increase in economically disadvantaged students. In Marple-Newtown, the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch more than doubled and in Springfield, the rate grew by nearly 80%.

What is most important is that resources are made available to help these districts support students with more difficult home lives.  While education is often seen as an equalizer to combat the cycle of poverty, many districts in our region are not equipped with the resources necessary to support students from economically disadvantaged families.  Data shows that children living in economically-disadvantaged families have greater difficulties meeting the demands of school.  One of the best investments towards a lifetime of success is guaranteeing a strong start, such as with full day kindergarten.  Regrettably, you won’t find it in the in the three school districts listed coping with major increases in economically-disadvantaged students.  With 863 students, Upper Darby has by far the largest kindergarten enrollment, more than twice as much as any other Delaware County district.  But Upper Darby does not offer full day kindergarten.  Things aren’t much better in Marple-Newtown, where less than 3% of kindergarteners receive full day education, and Springfield doesn’t have any full day kindergarten seats.

Expanding access to early childhood education costs money and thanks to politically motivated school funding decisions in Harrisburg, 93% of Delaware County school districts are currently funded at a level below where they were just three years ago. Only Upper Darby has seen an increase over 2010 levels, but that doesn’t mean it is adequately funded.  Not by any means.

PCCY compared current funding levels to where they would be if the state went back to a research based funding formula and found that Delaware County school districts are being shorted more than $45 million this year alone.  And Upper Darby is responsible for the largest part of that funding deficit; its funding gap is roughly the size of the next two largest deficits combined.

 

The problems faced by Delaware County are not unique to Delco, people all over the country are still struggling from the recession and school districts have felt the effects.  But the problems are addressable.  By reinstituting a fair funding formula in Harrisburg, the state can ensure that Delaware County schools get the funding they need to provide the best possible education for all their students, regardless of their economic situation at home.

Connecting the Dots – Drops in Employer Based Coverage, Medicaid failures and Less Children Insured spells trouble for the Governor’s “Healthy PA”

There has been a trend over the last decade in Pennsylvania where fewer children have employer-based health coverage and more children have moved to public coverage.  Unfortunately, over the past two years the state has taken action to remove nearly 100,000 children from Medical Assistance—and nearly a third of them live in southeastern PA.  This has led to a frightening fact: according to a recently released study by The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP), a higher percentage of Pennsylvania’s kids were uninsured in 2012 than in 2013.

HAP reports that “the number of Pennsylvanians covered by private, employer-based plans hit an all-time low of 59.5 percent in 2012.”  Meanwhile, from August 2011 to September 2013, there was a net reduction of 93,000 Pennsylvania children from Medical Assistance.  Almost 29,000 of them from southeastern PA.

Alarmingly, this is anew trend in Pennsylvania.  In the five months between August and December 2011, there was a drop of more than 88,000 children from Medical Assistance.  This many children haven’t been removed from Medical Assistance since 1997’s welfare reform, after which, tens of thousands of kids were eventually reinstated.  At the same time, Pennsylvania had the largest reduction (almost 10%) in Medicaid enrollment for children, families and pregnant women.  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, that drop was almost three times larger than the state with the second largest reduction.

So what’s the reasoning for the draconian cuts from Medical Assistance? News reports revealed that many of the cuts “turned out to involve paperwork that [advocates] say DPW lost - sometimes repeatedly, even when clients had receipts - or that had never been sent in the first place. Roughly two out of three people cut were dropped for missing or incomplete paperwork.  The official numbers don't count an additional 23,000 children whose benefits were cut and eventually restored retroactively, often with legal help. But poorer people may be less likely to call a lawyer, and child advocates believe thousands have no idea they are now uninsured”. 

In a cruel bit of irony, this comes at the same time that Governor Corbett touts his Healthy PA Plan, which proclaimed, “No child in Pennsylvania should be without health care.”  In fact just last month, the Governor said his goal is to “insure all children in Pennsylvania”.  We couldn’t agree more with that goal, but actions speak louder than words and over the last few years it’s become harder for PA children to get health insurance.  Every child in Pennsylvania has the right to medical coverage; we need to work together to reverse the trend of the last decade, toward a day when there are no uninsured children in the state.  And the first thing we need to do is make sure no one is removed from Medical Assistance who truly needs it.

Because of Underfunding, Not All Schools Are Equal in Montgomery County

At first glance, the education situation in Montgomery County appears better than in many of the surrounding areas.  But better isn’t good enough. Countywide, education in Montgomery County is strong.  Still, despite having the best graduation rate in the region and exceeding state averages on the PSSAs, there is a great divide among school districts in the county.  The instructional spending gap between the highest and lowest spending districts is $142,000 per classroom. The county contains the Lower Merion School District, one of the wealthiest districts in the state, if not the nation.  Montgomery County also has rising poverty—the number of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch jumped 45% from 2008 to 2012, the largest increase in the region.  Chronic underfunding due to the lack of a funding formula from the state, to the tune of $34 million this year alone, has led districts across the county to raise taxes during the recession, increasing the burden on already hurting Pennsylvania families.

Pennsylvania is one of just three states without a funding formula for education.  PCCY’s analysis has found that if the formula from 2008 remained in place, Montgomery County schools would have an additional $34 million this year from the state.  But this isn’t a one-year problem.  In fact, every district in the county is receiving less than it did three years ago.  As you can see by the graph below, Norristown took by far the biggest funding hit, which is particularly troubling because the Norristown School District is home to the highest number of students receiving free or reduced price lunch in the county.

To cope with the state’s underfunding, school districts only have a few options.  The money for educating students has to come from somewhere, and because layoffs are always a last resort, local taxes often have to be raised. Eighty three percent of Montco school districts have done just that since 2010 and the spending gap between districts has grown.  Wealthier districts, by definition, do not need to greatly increase their tax burden to raise sufficient funds for their schools.  At the other end of the spectrum, districts with weaker tax bases need to raise property taxes at a much higher rate to see even a moderate funding increase—that reality is even more troubling when you consider that the tax burden in these areas is already disproportionately high.

This economic disparity is a double whammy, hitting children in the classroom and parents in the bank account.  The Pottstown School District has the highest property tax rates in the county, roughly double those in wealthy Lower Merion, but it has some of the lowest classroom spending—Lower Merion’s is about 60% higher.  Lower Merion’s more than $16,000 per student instructional spending is 79% that of the lowest spending district, Upper Perkiomen.  Because of this disparity, things aren’t as good as they initially seem in Montgomery County.  And until there is a fair funding formula that shifts the burden from an unequal tax base, they won’t be.