Pennsylvania ranks 35th in the nation in state money per student for basic education, according to Good Schools Pennsylvania, a public education advocacy group.

Taxpayer unrest and complaints of being taxed out of their homes — especially from the state's elderly, who often speak at the ballot box — have renewed interest in property tax reform.

Dee Falce, 74, has lived in her West Mifflin home for 43 years. The assessment on the house shot up 34 percent this year, from $65,800 to $88,300.

"I'm the only one living there. I'm on a fixed income," said Falce, a retired beautician whose husband, Theodore, died in 1996. She has already filed an appeal of her new assessment.

"The house needs repairs that she can't afford to get," said her daughter, Sandy.

Many proponents of change say most school districts can't cut property taxes unless the state comes up with a better way to fund schools. Advocates want a system that relies less on local taxes and recognizes that not all school districts are created equal, but should be funded so they can provide an adequate education to all students.

"You'll never have a fair funding system and a fair system of tax reform unless people are ready to make the assumption that some districts need more than others," said Tim Allwein, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association in Harrisburg.

Pennsylvania, though, totters under one of the most inequitable systems for funding schools in America, according to Education Week, an independent education newspaper. The gap between the haves and have-nots is wider in only North Dakota, Illinois and New Hampshire.

Wilkinsburg is one of Allegheny County's biggest have-nots. One school, Johnston Elementary, holds some classes in a windowless basement. Paint peels from the school's walls, some of which are pocked with holes as big as a man's hand. It's too small for the 390 children enrolled there, and some study in trailers that have no bathrooms.

"Wilkinsburg has been like this for years, and it just seems to keep getting worse, instead of getting better, and if the state doesn't soon step in and do something, I would hate to see what happens to the children in Wilkinsburg," said Michelle Lawrence. Her son, Tre, 8, attends Turner Elementary School.

The funding difficulties aren't limited to the poor districts.

Enrollment in Seneca Valley, which includes Cranberry Township, increases by 3 percent to 4 percent every year. Some years, state funding increases at the same rate, and some years it doesn't, said Business Manager Lynn Stewart.

"It's still primarily residential growth, and residential growth doesn't bring in enough revenue for the costs that it generates," Stewart said.

MICHIGAN'S SOLUTION

In 1993, Michigan faced the same situation. Rather than continue on a course that satisfied no one, the state Legislature took a huge gamble: It scrapped its plan for funding public schools and started over.

The state slashed the property tax burden on homeowners, on average, nearly in half — a net savings of $25 billion in taxes. The changes also benefited poor schools. Much of the money to pay for schools is generated by a mix of property, sales, income, cigarette and real estate transfer taxes.

"To achieve school finance equity and taxpayer relief, Michigan is the best system," said Griffith, the analyst in Denver. But rich districts there grumble about not being able to use their property wealth to improve their schools.

State Treasurer Doug Roberts helped design Michigan's system, known as Proposal A. Before the change, he lived in a house in East Lansing with a market value of $200,000.

"My property taxes were $8,000 a year — more than the principle and interest I paid," he said. After Proposal A, his property taxes dropped to about $5,000 a year.

The change has given districts such as Hamtramck, near Detroit, a badly needed transfusion of cash. Hamtramck raised $4,500 per student before Proposal A and gets $6,500 now. The district has used the money to upgrade facilities, hire librarians and install science and computer labs in the high school.

"We're definitely getting more money," said Deborah Hayes, principal at Holbrook Elementary in the Hamtramck district. "I don't think it's enough, though, considering this is such an at-risk school district."

Michigan's school districts also feel the muscle behind the money.

"Yeah, local schools got money from the state," said Rita Moe, a teacher of government, English and Latin for Baldwin Public Schools in western Michigan. "But local schools don't have as much control as they used to."

That complaint has resonated in other states where the funding schemes have changed.

"There's been a tendency over the last 20 years to have loss of local control," Griffith said. "When states become more responsible for school financing, they want to be more responsible for other key issues."

State courts have driven most of the change in school funding. By 2000, courts in 18 states, including Wyoming, had ruled the funding systems unconstitutional.

Now, Wyoming has one of the best systems for adequately funding schools, said James Guthrie, director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He is founder and chairman of the board of Management Analysis & Planning Inc., a consulting firm that designed funding systems in Wyoming and other states.

The Legislature raised the tax on minerals mined there and shipped out of state.

"There are more BTUs under Wyoming than Saudi Arabia," Guthrie said. "It's just not in the form of oil. It's coal."

Vermont created a Robin Hood system in which taxpayers in wealthier towns subsidize their poorer neighbors. The plan helped poor schools improve their facilities, their teaching and their test scores, said Edith Miller, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association.

"It's doing what it's supposed to be doing," she said. "But there's a great outcry from the towns that are sharing. Their taxes have gone up, and they're feeling it's an unfair burden."

In perhaps the most complicated system in the nation, Texas capped how much money school taxes can raise and guaranteed a minimum amount they can generate.

Guthrie dislikes that system because it relies too much on property taxes and skewers wealthy districts.

"The problem is at some point the wealthy people will opt out of public schools, put their children in private schools and vote to lower the property taxes," he said. "The long-term effect may be to resegregate society — wealthy and poor."

TAXING VS. SPENDING

To be sure, Pennsylvania isn't ready to take such dramatic steps. The arguments here are more chicken and egg: Are property taxes so high because schools can't control their spending, or are school districts taxing so much because the state isn't paying its share?

Momentum is building to at least talk about how the state pays for public schools, but lines are already being drawn in the sand.

House Majority Leader John Perzel, a Philadelphia Republican, opposes any plan that calls for higher state taxes and doubts the state should spend more on schools, said a spokesman, Stephen Drachler.

But continued reliance on property taxes may condemn children in poor communities to an education inferior to that of well-off students, experts said.

"Is the problem the tax itself or the level at which we depend on it? I think it's the latter rather than the former," said Allwein, of the school boards association.