The Property Tax Prison of Education Funding

Invisible though they may be to the naked eye, school district borders increasingly trap low-income students in cash-strapped districts struggling to provide the resources available to their wealthier neighbors.

I sometimes wonder how the inherent unfairness that exists in education funding continues without some kind of revolution taking place.

And then I wake up and remember I live in Pennsylvania.

Perhaps because its a bit complicated and takes more than 15 minutes to understand. Perhaps because not enough people feel any kind of connection with those most adversely affected. Or maybe its just the pall of overall apathy.

Usually, people tend to wake up a bit when faced with examples of kids getting the shaft. After all, we all want the best for our children right?

Maybe we need to broaden the definition of "our children" a bit.

Not that we needed any more evidence of the way cleaving to the property tax as the primary funding source for public education undermines students not fortunate enough to live in a wealthy zip code, but there's more anyway.

It comes in the form of a new report by an organization called EdBuild, a non-profit national organization dedicating to bringing "common sense and fairness to the way states fund public schools."

Their study, "Fault Lines," takes a look at America's most segregated school district borders.

From the examination of more than 33,000 borders between school districts, they the chose the worst 50, the 50 places in America where a line on a map separates well-funded public schools from their polar opposite.

It may surprise you to know that those 50 worst school disparities are concentrated in just 14 states and Pennsylvania is tied with New York for third place. Yay.

Both states have six such districts but perhaps the most shameful part about all of it is that borders between Reading City Schools and those wealthier districts which surround it comprise four of Pennsylvania's six worst disparities.

According to the report, 48 percent of Reading's school children live in poverty.

And four of the districts which surround it -- Schuylkill Valley, Governor Mifflin, Wilson and Wyomissing -- have respective poverty rates of just 10 percent, 11 percent, 11 percent and 12 percent.

We all know these communities to some extent or another. And they are the poster children for the three sentences in the report that crystalize what Pennsylvania's property tax-reliant school funding system is doing to our children.

"Socioeconomic segregation is rising in America's schools, in part because of the structure of education funding. the over-reliance on locally raised property taxes to fund public schools gives wealthier communities the permission to keep their resources away

from the neediest schools. This creates a system of school district borders that trap low-income children in high concentrations of poverty, while more privileged peers live in better resourced communities, often right next door."

Now, if that does not describe the conditions under which Pottstown schools labor every day, then slap my face and call me Sally. Obviously, it also describes Reading.

And we need to recognize this is not just affecting "them."

According to the Center for Education Policy Analysis, more than 26 million school children -- 48 percent of all school-age children living in America -- live within the bounds of a high-poverty school district, as cited in  EdBuild's report.

That's half the children in America folks.

Half.

They are "our children."

And as the Fault Lines report sadly observes:

"Often, just on the other side of an invisible but effectively impermeable district border, their more privileged peers live in better-resourced communities and are taught in classrooms where they are able to learn and grow with abundant resources that are unencumbered by the challenges their peers face every day."

That is the reality that half America's children now face thanks to our over-reliance on property taxes and our inability to find another way fund schools.

Those challenges that children in poverty face every day -- and the impact those challenges have on their education -- are well established.

Financial insecurity, high rates of crime, mental, emotional and physical health problems that create trauma in the lives of these young Americans -- literally physiological changes that affect their brain development -- all make succeeding in school that much harder, as if they did not have enough to contend with already.

Add to that limited access to quality early education and its no wonder that they fall behind the minute they walk into their first kindergarten classroom.

To its credit, Pottstown Schools have addressed these problems -- PEAK is a state and national model for providing the best early education possible on a limited budget; and new efforts to understand and address the impacts of trauma on school children are now underway.

But Pottstown schools cannot single-handedly force the state to bridge the funding gap that still exists despite the positive step toward a fair funding formula, and as a result, the school must spend more becoming a driver of the very high-tax, low-tax base merry go-round that creates the problems they face in the first place.

As Pottstown School Board member Thomas Hylton said last week. "We can't keep going on like this. We're going to have to get creative."

And sadly, the burden for untying this Gordian knot will remain firmly on the shoulders of individual school districts so long as our well-paid state legislatures continue to spend their time worrying about meaningless minutiae like who sells us our alcohol instead of how our schools are funded.

It's within Harrisburg's power to address this problem, and to do so with limited political pain, always the top consideration under the copper dome.

An effort now being championed by Pottstown Mayor Sharon Thomas and highlighted by The Mercury in May when former state representative and Monroe County Comptroller Kelly Lewis came to town to talk about an organization called Equity First.

He argued, rather convincingly, that the increase in education funding contained in the two most

recent state budgets can do the most good by setting aside a portion of the new pool of education funding to be targeted specifically to the 180 school districts in Pennsylvania which are underfunded by $937 million every year.

That would still provide more money for the 320 over-funded districts, just not as much.

Pottstown by the way, is Pennsylvania's 14th most underfunded school district. It won't surprise you, given what EdBuild found, to know that Reading is number one on this unenviable list.

Pottstown School District is underfunded every year by $11 million, according to the commission report, said Lewis.

That’s more than 18 percent of this year's $59.6 million Pottstown Schools budget which, by some miracle, did not raise taxes for the second straight year.

Providing an additional share of the additional state educating funding is not a new idea.

In fact it is one of the many recommendations made last year by the fair funding commission, created by former Gov. Tom Corbett and headed by outgoing Republican Representative Mike Vereb of our own Montgomery County, suggesting as much as an additional 10 percent to the underfunded districts over 10 years to help them catch up.

But the General Assembly, in its particular myopic way, focused only on authorizing the formula, not bothering to make sure the funding was arranged to ensure the formula actually does the most good for the schools that need it most.

This allows legislators to go home to the voters and say they did the right thing by "adopting the formula" without most of those voters understanding that they gave out teaspoons to a fleet of floundering ships and said "you're welcome."

As I see it, there are only two ways this changes:

1. Legislatively, either through the current legislators getting a clue or by replacing them with some who do.
2. Or Pennsylvanians finally wake up to their raw deal their children are being handed and we get that revolution.

Is a Pottstown School Tax Hike Pending?

What's more fun than attending three Pottstown School Board committee meetings? Having a two-hour executive session right in the middle of it all of course.

One nice thing about the Pottstown School Board scheduling the facilities, personnel and finance committee meetings all on the same night is, its all on the same night.

So last night, my Twitter followers learned about some great bids for masonry work around the district, work on replacing the flat roof on the administration building and, most importantly, a first look at the 2016-17 school budget.

Work on the administration building flat room has already begun.

Given the chaos of the state budget process in Harrisburg, which continues as I write this, Business Manager Linda Adams gave her "best guess" about where state aid will land for the budget year we're still in.

What the picture will look like for the budget year she has started to plan for is anybody's guess.

Nevertheless, something are known at this point.

The preliminary $59,583,669 proposed budget for 2016-17 calls for spending almost $2.5 million more than the $57,136,928 2015-16 budget.

And of that increase, more than half that increase -- $1.6 million to be close to exact -- is due to salary and PSERS (retirement) increases. PSERS by itself is $1 million more.

Add in the fact that Gov. Tom Wolf's proposed budget had called for a charter school tuition reimbursement of more than $700,000 which the budget finally adopted in March did not include and next year's cannot be expected to include.

Another more local cause is the continuing collapse of Pottstown's property tax base. Assessment challenges in Pottstown -- more numerous than anywhere else in Montgomery County -- will strip another $393,000 off the revenue side of the balance sheet in 2016-17, said Adams.

And while an increase of more tan $200,000 is expected in state funds for the basic education subsidy, losses in special education funding and vocational education funding for the state leave Pottstown at a $70,723 loss in the state aid column, no matter what the headlines and state officials running for reelection may tell you.

The good news is that ultimately, this preliminary budget look only sees a $155,696 shortfall.

The bad news is that number only gets reached with an infusion of nearly $1 million in new local taxes, a 1.3345 mill tax hike, or 3.4 percent, the maximum allowed by the state index.

School Board President Andrew Kefer, who is also the chair of the joint personnel and finance committee, made it pretty clear that there is little appetite on the board for a tax hike of that size.

Board member Polly Weand expressed the hope that the borough-wide LERTA tax break the borough and school district are working together to implement will help to ultimately reverse the decline in assessed property values.

Let's hope she's right.

Here are the Tweets from the evening.

A Capitol Affair

Pottsgrove Middle School choral singers are joined by State Sen. John Rafferty, far left, and state Rep. Mark painter, near left.

Blogger's Note: The following provided by Beth Tripani on behalf of the Pottsgrove School District.

About 70 Pottsgrove Middle School students traveled to the Harrisburg Capitol on March 18 to perform a one hour concert at noon in the Rotunda as part of Music in our Schools Month. 

The students also received a guided tour of the Capital, and learned about the architecture and history of the building as well as the various branches of government. Senator John Rafferty and Reprepesentative Mark Painter spoke to the students and took pictures with the group.

"Many of the students were thrilled with how the group sounded because of the beautiful acoustics in the building," said Choral Director Carole Bean.

"It was thrilling for me to see the excitement on the faces of the students as they performed in such a prestigious venue."

The group sang at the Capitol in 2006 and 2010 for the same type of event.

They had to submit an application in September to the Pennsylvania Music Education Association for the chance to perform there. 

The group sang songs including: "We are the World," "Let There Be Peace on Earth," "The Climb," "Like an Eagle," "Lean on Me" and "Blessings." 

They also sang a patriotic song called "America the Beautiful" which include The Pledge of Allegiance and readings from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech. 

The concert also included songs such as "It's Ragtime," "Hawaii 5 O," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Dona Nobis Pacem," "Popular," "Joshua," and "Dynamite."

Music to Their Ears

Pottstown School District music students who performed in Harrisburg, outside the capitol building.

Blogger's Note and Full Disclosure: Our thanks, as always to the steadfast John Armato for providing this information and yes, that is my son in the photos playing the sax.

Inside, they got a tour of the capitol and met with

State Sen. John Rafferty

Recently, members of the Pottstown School District Music Department brought their music to our state capitol building in Harrisburg. 

 Students, under the direction of Brian Langdon, Ben Hayes, and Nancy Mest, performed in the Rotunda of our state capitol as part of the Music In Our Schools Month program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association.

A total of four ensembles made the trip to the state capitol.

Both the high school flute ensemble and clarinet ensemble rounded out the performances with performers including: Jenna Endy, Amira Mohamed, Claudia La, Maxine Bacon, and Ziarra Caballero for the flutes; and Kelsey Shumaker, Kelsie Andrews, Tatiana Robinson, Katie Kolbmann, Marlee DeBlase, and Nicolas Muriel for the clarinets. 

Brian Langdon conducts the elementary brass quintet.

Representing the elementary schools was the Elementary Brass Quintet with the following members: Jacob Eagle, Anthony Russo, Veronica Gomez, David Hicks, and Emily Weber.

A jazz ensemble represented the middle school program. Performers included: Soaad Elbahwati, Emily Greiss, Dylan Brandt, London Aquino, Cole Sellers, and Casey Mest.

The trip was more than entertainment. 

Students enjoyed a meeting with State Senator John Rafferty and were given a guided tour of the historic state capitol. 

During the tour, they were able to look in on both the House of Representatives and Senate meetings. 

The Pottstown High School Flute Ensemble performs

“This trip is a valuable tool for our students and community to demonstrate the value that the performing arts play in our educational system," said Brian Langdon, who helped organize the trip. 

"Our students were proud to be able to represent our school district and to take part in an extremely educational experience,” Langdon said.

Pottstown Middle School Music Teacher Ben Hayes directs the Middle School Jazz Ensemble

Voter ID Law is a Solution in Search of a Problem

So for the moment, and only for the moment, let's set aside the politics.

Let's say the real reason for the Republican Pennsylvania State Legislature and Gov. Corbett to enact a voter ID law is to prevent fraud.

At least that was the reason they gave.

It must be pretty bad.

I'd like to have a look. Can anyone show me where it is? Where did it happen in large numbers? Where is this problem we're solving?

The most recent answer to that question came under President George W. Bush, when the U.S. Justice Department conducted a five-year probe of voter fraud, ending in 2007.

"These laws are the new Jim Crow laws of our times.”
—Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin (D)

Their net?  Eighty six convictions.

Meanwhile, a recent Associated Press reports that 758,939 registered Pennsylvania voters do not have the most easily obtained and widely used photo ID, a state driver's license and so, may be unable to vote.

In Montgomery County, it is estimated that almost 45,000 voters do not have identification that meets the law’s requirement.

When debating the measure, Republicans in Harrisburg assured worried voters that the law would hardly affect anybody who is already registered.

Truly, voter fraud is a mouse of a problem which the GOP is
solving with the legislative equivalent of an atomic bomb.

But the Associated Press report indicates the law could disenfranchise 9.2 percent of the electorate.

Even if you assume all 86 convictions came from Pennsylvania (they didn't) that's a new-problem-created-to-old-non-problem-resolved ratio of 8,824.872093023256 to 1.

Even by Harrisburg math standards, that seems a bit inefficient; unless of course you don't see disenfranchising more than three-quarters of a million registered voters from exercising their civil rights as a problem.

Oddly, real problems in Pennsylvania can't seem to get the time of day in the Legislature.

Consider our lopsided property tax system, or our crumbing infrastructure -- problems which the Pennsylvania Legislature's constituents actually want them to solve. They remain, as they have for decades, languishing in legislative lala land while the GOP rushes to solve a problem whose existence cannot be demonstrated.

A protestor makes his case.

Hmm, so if there really isn't a problem, what other reason could there be to pass such a law?

Prepare yourselves, gentle reader, but the answer might just be ... Dare I say it? Dare we think it? ... yup, politics. More specifically, presidential politics.

Despite the fact that Pennsylvania has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1992, passing a law that makes it harder for people without cars (poor), who live in cities (blacks) to cast their vote might finally accomplish by fiat what they could not accomplish fair and square.

Gov. Tom Corbett signs one of the nation's the
strictest Voter ID bills into law.

Can't convince enough people your man is the man? Just eliminate the people you can't convince from casting a vote in the first place. Simple right?

Pardon my cynicism, but it found great foundation when Mike Turzai, the majority leader of the House of Representatives in Harrisburg opened his mouth and removed all doubt.

Mike Turzai let the cat
out of  the bag. Ooops.

Speaking to a friendly crowd recently, Turzai began ticking off a list of the year's accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature and Governor's mansion.

When he got around to the afore-mentioned law, Turzai said: "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania – done."

(For those of you who don't have television, Gov. Romney is the de-facto Republican nominee for president.)

If it were just Pennsylvania, it would be pretty bad. But it's worse than pretty bad.

This is part of a nation-wide effort by Republicans to restrict access to the ballot box.


"This year, legislation is pending in 32 states so far," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"That includes new voter ID proposals in 14 states, proposals to strengthen existing voter ID laws in ten states, and bills in nine states to amend the new voter ID laws passed in 2011. The governor signed a new voter ID bill on March 14 in Pennsylvania, and the Virginia General Assembly has sent a new voter ID bill to the governor."

The NCSL has rated Pennsylvania's new law as one of the strictest.

According to National Public Radio, 11 state legislatures over the past two years have enacted some kind of voter ID law. Thirty-one states now require voters to show identification at the polls.

Although this kid may have a student ID, it would not allow
access to the voting booth if the Texas Legislature has its way.
Luckily, it's a gun license, so vote away junior.

And in Texas, where right-wing extremism goes when it needs a hug, the new law now being challenged would not allow Social Security, Medicaid, or student ID cards as adequate identification to exercise your rights.

However, as might be expected from the state that calls the Constitution "the law that lets us carry guns and all that other stuff," gun licenses are enough identification to identify you as someone the Texas Legislature wants in the voting booth.

Now I would be remiss if I did not make mention of an Associated Press story in yesterday's Mercury which highlighted voter registration forms sent by a non-profit, non-partisan organization to people who had died, or for pets, some of whom had also died.

The group, once called Women's Voices: Women Vote and now going by the inexcusable name of Voter Participation Center, says it is trying to increase participation among minorities, unmarried women and people under the age of 30 -- all people who should obviously be denied the right to vote.

In this photo taken Wednesday, July 11, 2012, Brenda Charlston
holds a photo of her long-deceased dog, Rosie, and a voter registration
form for 'Rosie Charlston' that arrived in the mail for the canine
last month, in Seattle. Rosie was a black lab who died in 1998.
I'm not sure of how Rosie would have voted, but I'll bet you she
would never have left any hanging chads.

This undeniably hilarious incident, no doubt, serves as fodder for those who say such "fraud" is rampant and tout photo ID laws as a way to keep those improperly registered, from voting fraudulently.

But again, while the anecdote is alluring and a great newspaper story, the numbers behind it are small.

Katie Blinn, a co-director of elections in Washington state, told AP they have heard about a “handful” of pet-related forms in the state of the past few weeks. Once again, it proposes solving an ant-sized issue with a bazooka.

Personally, I have enough faith in the judgment of the nation's poll workers -- true patriots who work for pennies to ensure the functioning of our democracy's single most critical function --  to believe they would deny poll access to a corpse or "Scampers" the dog, who was apparently offered the chance to register in Virginia.

Just like you can avoid ID requirements to buy cigarettes,
most voter fraud happens with absentee ballots, which
ID laws do not address.

A conservative friend of mine (yes, I have them) who likes to debate these things with me on Facebook raised what I thought was a pretty valid point.

He said something like, you have to show ID to get Welfare payments, and Medicaid, cash a check or buy cigarettes or liquor. Why not voting?"

My response is that those things are benefits that involve public money, or privileges not enshrined in the Constitution. You should have to prove you are the person who is supposed to get that benefit and buying booze is not a right, just a pleasant privilege.

Voting is a civil right right folks, not a political strategy.

Do you need to show an ID to be speak in a public place, or publish a newspaper?

Do you need to show an ID before you can exercise your right not to be discriminated against? (Hmm, OK bad example because, ironically, with these laws in place the answer to that is "yes.")

Eugene Robinson

And yes, you do mostly need to show an ID to buy a gun, but, to my knowledge, no one has ever used a ballot to kill someone, so we'll chalk that one up to common sense.

I couldn't improve on columnist Eugene Robinson's comment on the situation, so I'll just reproduce it here: "Not one case (in the Bush-era investigation) involved the only kind of fraud that voter ID could theoretically prevent: impersonation of a registered voter by someone else. Pennsylvania and other voter ID states have, in a sense, passed laws that will be highly effective in eradicating unicorns.

So let's call a political hack job a political hack job and move on.

The law will, in all likelihood, be in place in November so the best thing to do is learn how to deal with it.

And that is what a non-partisan meeting July 26 is designed to do.

Ellen Kaplan of the Committe

It will be held at the Science Center auditorium at the Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell at 7 p.m.

The meeting will be facilitated by Ellen Kaplan, vice president and policy director of the Committee of Seventy, a non-partisan voter watchdog group.

“There is a great deal of confusion and concern about the new Voter I.D. law,” said Montgomery County Commissioners vice-Chairman Leslie Richards, who is also chairman of the Montgomery County Election Board.

“And this meeting is one of several steps we are taking to help ensure that the law, if upheld in court, does not prevent anyone who wants to vote from doing so.”

Richards said that while there are strong feelings in favor of and against the new law, the purpose of this meeting is not to provide a venue for people to “trumpet its benefits or vent their displeasure,” but rather to hold a “constructive, informative and helpful meeting where voters can objectively learn about the provisions of the law, and how to obtain the forms of identification the law requires. Of course, if issues or problems with the law’s implementation are overlooked, we would certainly encourage members of the audience to bring that to our attention.”

Richards said that the county has created a “working group” of individuals from various constituencies with a wide range of talents, who are working diligently to identify issues with the new law and to “seek ways to make sure that everyone who wants to vote can.”

It should not take a college course to figure out how to vote. That's the kind of barrier erected by Jim Crow laws.

Student Music in the Round Makes for the Well-Rounded Student

Pottstown High School Flute Ensemble was among several groups that visited Harrisburg March 6 and played in the Capitol Rotunda. From front left are: Marissa Somich, Evelyn Bailey, Danae Perrymond. Back row, from left, are Emily Griffin, Jenna Endy, Alesha James, Amira Mohammed.

As an amateur (very amateur) musician, I confess to having a partiality for music programs, both formal and informal.

I began with the clarinet in school and insisted my parents had to buy the instrument before I lost total interest in it.

Middle School Clarinet Ensemble, from left are: 

Casey Mest (Bass Clarinet), Nancy S. Mest, Isabelle Schiffler, Rachael
Levengood, Kyli McKee, Alivia Lopez and Alysha Soto.

Then it was on the bass clarinet, an unwieldy instrument that I tried to convince people was a much cooler (I thought) saxophone.

So, big surprise, I am a big advocate for school music programs. Not only do they epitomize the term "enrichment," but they also teach a valuable skill -- learning to read music.

As someone who could truthfully be described as being "math challenged," learning how to read music, understand how things are segmented into measures, the time, the speed was a kind of back-door math lesson I desperately needed and probably helped me crawl over the finish line for the New York State Regents tests.

(Those are kind of like the PSSAs, except they are a state-wide test in subjects like algebra, trigonometry, chemistry, physics and English -- and foreign languages as well.)

Pottstown Middle School Brass Ensemble, Ben Clarke, 
Chloe Francis, John Johnson, Donta Smith, Kyle Kratzer
and Christian Clarke play in the Capitol Rotunda in
Harrisburg.

As happened last year, it won't be long before the school board sits down to the unenviable task of trying to figure out how to fit is budget into the ever-smaller box Harrisburg provides for public education.

With little choice but to look at "non-mandated programs," the board will eventually come to the point where it considers cuts to art and music programs as they are non-mandated.

It is not an easy place to be, but let's hope they can find some other way. Not just because "enrichment" is what makes school more than just a chore, but because ultimately, music helps with those all-important test scores.

Consider this information from the University of Kansas, provided under the no-nonsense headline "Music boosts test scores:"

"In a time when emphasis on testing often has meant cutbacks for school music programs, a study by KU researcher Christopher Johnson shows that slashing music could undermine standardized test performance in math and English." 

Pottstown High School Clarinet Ensemble, from left front, 

Emily Kolbmann, Dakota Thorne(Bass Clarinet), Carly Mutter 

Back-Tatiana Robinson, Kelsie Andrews, Kelsey Shumaker, 

Katie Kolbmann

 "We picked schools that were elementary or junior high that were fairly well matched in every demographic, except what was going on in their music classrooms," said Johnson.

"We looked for classrooms that had outstanding music education going on and classrooms that were less than adequate," he said.

Johnson, professor of music education and music therapy and associate dean of the School of Fine Arts at KU, found jumps of 22 percent in English test scores and 20 percent in math scores at elementary schools with superior music education. Results were similar in middle schools.
One theory holds that higher scores result because music helps to develop attentiveness.

"When you sit down and do a standardized test you are on task trying to concentrate and focus for an extended period of time. And there's really not a lot of things in school that require you to that," said Johnson.

"You can do a couple of math problems, get off task, look at the wall. You know, read a couple of lines in English and zone out. But if you zone out in band you're likely to be playing a solo. If you zone out in choir, you might sing a solo - that has to be just as mortifying."

Middle School Flute Ensemble: From left, Emilie Lineman, 

Rashel Williams, Sara Dudley, Emily Greiss, Maxine Bacon, 

Sara Butler, Cluadia La, Ziarra Caballero.

But it is not because of how it might help his test scores (full disclosure alert!) that I'm pleased my 13-year-old is involved in Pottstown's music program. Rather, it is more because of the value of an enriching experience, a way to be part of a "team" that focuses on a different kind of ability.

As a parent and music appreciator, it is also a great pleasure to me that music is held in such high regard in this area. (When I was in high school, being in the marching band was not something your bragged about).

So it also gives me great pleasure to share with you some photos e-mailed to me by Nancy Mest, an instrumental music instructor in the Pottstown School District.

She wrote that "the Woodwind Ensembles from both Pottstown Middle School and Pottstown High School plus the Middle School Brass Ensemble traveled to our State Capitol in Harrisburg on Tuesday, March 6, 2012 to perform in the lunch time concert series held  as part of Music In Our School Month. 

Middle School Brass Ensemble

"Groups performed selections such as:  Amazing Grace, Colors of the Wind, Mission Impossible, Mozart's Allegro, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Arkansas Traveler as well as others. 

"After the performance, student were photographed on the steps of the Rotunda followed my a tour of our State Capitol building," Mrs. Mest wrote.

Sadly, although our public schools treated them to a FREE musical performance, I tend to doubt it will move our state legislators to fund public education to the point that school boards will not have to consider cuts to the music program this year.