Amid a severe teacher and staff shortage, school support workers and their union allies rallied Tuesday in Harrisburg for a better living wage.

The group said House Bill 777 would raise wages for more than 41,000 school staff members. More than 100 people gathered on the Capitol steps and met with lawmakers to gauge their support for the bill.

Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said it would raise the pay for support staff in public schools to a living wage of at least $20 per hour.

"About 45% of our colleagues that are support professionals would benefit from raising the wage to $20 an hour," Chapin reported. "And unfortunately, so many of our educational support professionals, they're not able to make ends meet with the current salaries that they have. Many of them have a second job."

The House bill has 22 cosponsors, all Democrats. Chapin pointed out it would raise support staff wages by about $3 an hour. A survey by the association last fall found four of five Pennsylvania voters would support a $20 minimum wage for school support staff.

Marc Howshall, vice president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association's Education Support Professionals Division and a custodian for the Bangor Area School District, said better wages and working conditions are crucial. He supports the new push for higher pay and argued it is key to keeping workers in the profession.

"A living wage would coexist with $20 an hour, and it would impact more members," Howshall emphasized. "Through the surveys and talking to people, it came to fruition that's the case. It will help a lot more members to be able to survive, to be able to live a little more comfortable, instead of just at -- really, in some cases -- the edge of poverty."

Rudy Burruss, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association's Education Support Professionals Division and a paraprofessional for the State College Area School District, works with students with disabilities and said he has had to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. While most workers he has spoken with said they chose the field for the love of the kids, Burruss stressed a raise would help them breathe a little easier.

"We've been working, we've been doing the job. We haven't been paid what we should be, but we work because we love the kids, and what we're doing," Burruss explained. "This will help ease some of that financial burden. People are making choices between loving their profession and loving the work they do, and trying to make ends meet."

Mississippi's decade-long focus on early literacy has transformed the state.

According to the Mississippi Department of Education, the state's fourth graders are making the nation's largest gains on reading assessments. They once ranked last on the tests. Media reports have dubbed the transformation the "Mississippi miracle."

Harry Patrinos, professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas, said the turnaround is anything but luck.

"Mississippi was 49th in the state in fourth grade reading. In just a decade, they went to 21st place in reading, and these gains continued to impress," Patrinos explained. "The country was hit with the school closures during COVID-19 but since then, Mississippi has not lost anything in terms of learning outcomes, which is rare in the country and the world."

The state's progress stems from its 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, which emphasized speech-based instruction, early intervention and retention for students not meeting reading benchmarks.

Michelle Nowell, executive director of elementary education and reading for the Mississippi Department of Education, said the so-called "miracle" comes from sustained reforms focused on teacher training.

"We have renamed it the Mississippi Marathon," Nowell noted. "When I say we, I mean the department, the literacy coaches, because it really was a marathon, not a miracle because so much hard work went into it."

Nowell believes it is the human element behind the policy success, describing how literacy coaches from the state's education department built trust in schools across the state.

"In the past, anytime you mentioned MDE and MDE visiting a school district, it wasn't always a good thing," Nowell acknowledged. "It was either for an audit, and we wanted to change that perception. It's not a gotcha, we're here to help you. So we had to really build those relationships."

According to Patrinos, the reforms had an extra cost of $32 per student annually. The Trump administration recently announced $132 million in cuts to Mississippi's education funding, threatening the long-term success of its literacy programs.


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North Dakota's legislative session is scheduled to end in May, and the issue of using public funds for what's called school choice remains unresolved.

Republican lawmakers are pushing competing bills that would create Education Savings Accounts, giving North Dakota families money to enroll their kids in private schools.

One cleared the state Senate last week after winning House approval, and now both chambers have to sort out the differences. A separate measure has advanced, but not quite as far.

Superintendent Rick Diegel of the Kidder County School District said he doesn't want either one becoming law, noting small public schools like his need the money instead.

"I could use a STEM teacher out here, and our school used to offer family consumer science," said Diegel. "Those CTE programs are vital for kids that decide they don't want to be doctors and lawyers and such. However, because of the cost, I had to cut that program."

He and other bill opponents, including some Republicans, argue private schools are hard to come by in rural counties - and don't have to accept everyone who applies.

But supporters say parents should have more choice, especially if they feel their child needs a more personalized learning environment.

State Sen. Michelle Axtman, R-Bismarck, is a main sponsor of an ESA bill that would allow eligible families to use their funds for specialized public school programming, not just private school enrollment.

"Students do not learn in a one size fits all approach," said Axtman, "and that demand has transferred to our school systems."

But Nick Archuleta, president of the teacher's union ND United, warned about going down the school choice path.

He said with North Dakota raising the threshold for ballot initiatives to pass, now at 60%, local districts are in a tougher position to win local support for funding critical needs.

"We've had 58%, 59% of voters in specific communities vote to do something positive," said Archuleta, "to build either a new school or refurbish an existing school. And they aren't able to get the bonding because it wasn't 60%."

The Texas school voucher program is on its way back to the Senate, after it was approved by members of the House of Representatives in an 85 to 63 vote.

Senate Bill 2 would give families a taxpayer-funded $10,000 voucher for private school. The $1 billion voucher program was Gov. Greg Abbott's top priority for the session.

It's also supported by President Donald Trump, who spoke with Republican lawmakers in the Texas House before they approved the voucher proposal.

Texas American Federation of Teachers President Zeph Capo said he's more concerned with how the bill was passed than the actual legislation.

"When you can level that level of threat, when you can have that much control over who's elected to office," said Capo, "the people don't stand a chance until the people decide to completely do away with who's sitting in power."

In a written statement, Gov. Abbott said it is an extraordinary victory for the thousands of parents who have advocated for more choices when it comes to the education of their children.

Also moving to the Senate is House Bill 2, which would increase the amount of money school districts get by $395 per student and give teachers a pay increase.

Capo said while that's a small victory, Texas schools are still severely underfunded.

"Since there hasn't been any increase since 2019, and when you add the inflationary degradation of schools' buying power to those numbers," said Capo, "it would take about $1,000 more just to bring us back to where we were in 2019."

The allotment would automatically increase every two years, and lawmakers could also increase the amount while the bill is in committee.

The nonprofit Every Texan is also opposed to the voucher bill. The group's Director of Policy and Advocacy Chandra Villanueva said private school vouchers will only hurt low-income kids.

"Even with some tuition assistance for the really high-performing, elite private schools," said Villanueva, "low-income parents will never be able to access those schools, let alone get their children accepted into them. So we see the voucher as a giveaway for wealthy families."