NEW YORK TIMES: …The superintendent, citing the need for “shared sacrifice,” is asking for salary cuts from teachers of 5 to 13 percent and a wage freeze through 2017. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, called the cuts unreasonable. “Our members have done a tremendous amount of sacrificing,” Mr. Jordan said. “They were sacrificing before we started sharing.”
Philadelphia’s schools, whose chronic budget problems led to a state takeover in 2002, have not been this close to the abyss in memory. The troubles have many causes: rising pension costs, high debt payments for past borrowing that papered over budget gaps, a flight to charter schools and a block-grant formula for state aid that has fallen behind enrollments, which have increased 5,000 a year between charter and traditional schools, according to Mr. Hite.
State aid to Philadelphia schools declined by $274 million in the past three years, according to the Pennsylvania State Education Association. .. (more)
Each Charter School takes more taxpayer dollars from a school district than what it costs to operate a public school (because of twisted State reimbursement formulas). There are 84 charter schools in Philadelphia according to Wikipedia; that means that the School District of Philadelphia would have had to close 86 or more public schools over the past few years to maintain the same share of funding for each of its remaining public schools. Otherwise, public school class sizes must increase and/or programs must be cut.