Welcome to the debut of “Duty Free Lunch” where we discuss the most relevant issues happening in the state Legislature and how they affect PSEA members. The hosts for this episode are PSEA President Aaron Chapin and PSEA Vice President Jeff Ney and our guest is PSEA Director of Government Relations Dan Wiedemer.
Welcome to the debut of “Duty Free Lunch” where we discuss the most relevant issues happening in the state Legislature and how they affect PSEA members. The hosts for this episode are PSEA President Aaron Chapin and PSEA Vice President Jeff Ney and our guest is PSEA Director of Government Relations Dan Wiedemer.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover (00:02):
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin (00:24):
Hello and welcome to the debut of Duty Free Lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin, and I'm here with PSEA Vice President Jeff Ney. Hello, Jeff.
Jeff Ney (00:33):
Hey, Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin (00:34):
I'm doing fantastic. Have you ever been on a podcast before?
Jeff Ney (00:38):
I have never been on a podcast before, but this is one of your great ideas and I can't wait.
Aaron Chapin (00:43):
Me neither. And so bear with us listeners. We will be bringing you the issues that are affecting our colleagues, students, and schools, but we're also going to be sharing the amazing stories of our fellow members, and we hope to have a little bit of fun along the way. Today we're getting an insider's look at state government and politics. We'll discuss the most relevant issues happening in state legislature and how they affect you.
(01:05):
Joining us to help make sense of this is the director of PSEA government relations, Dan Wiedemer. Hello, Dan. Thanks for joining us.
Dan Wiedemer (01:13):
Hello. What an honor to be here.
Aaron Chapin (01:16):
Well, you being here is the great honor. We're going to get started because we've got a lot of questions for you. There's a lot going on across the street. So one of PSEA's top priorities is raising the minimum educators' salary to $60,000 a year and raising the support professional pay to a minimum of $20 per hour. Where are we with this legislative action on this and what can we expect in this new year?
Dan Wiedemer (01:41):
Well, let's start here, President Chapin. School employees don't make enough money. I think we could all agree with that, right?
Aaron Chapin (01:47):
I think so.
Jeff Ney (01:47):
I would agree.
Aaron Chapin (01:49):
Correct.
Dan Wiedemer (01:49):
We have seen a historic level of shortage over the past few years, not just in teachers, but in support staff, in mental health professionals, in bus drivers. There's simply not enough resources to pay them what they need to pay. And the sooner we accept that reality, by the way, the sooner we are going to be able to avoid this looming crisis that is in front of us. The second part of this is that there are far too many financial barriers to becoming educators. And I'm sure you two know that a lot better than I know it, right?
Aaron Chapin (02:23):
We hear it from the members everywhere we go.
Dan Wiedemer (02:28):
For example, the cost of college. So the average student debt for a teacher in the United States is $55,000. If you happen to be a teacher of color, which is a whole other problem that we need to address. But if you happen to be a teacher of color, you have more student debt than that. In fact, one in five have over a hundred thousand dollars in student debt. So who is taking on a hundred thousand dollars in student debt for a job with a minimum salary of $18,500? The math simply doesn't make sense.
(03:05):
We need to raise the salary up. Not only is it not economically viable for these folks, but we're also competing with other states right now. Maryland has a starting salary of $60,000. New Jersey is paying far more. Even West Virginia invested tens of millions of dollars in teacher retention programs. So if you're an educator and you can move 10 miles away to Maryland or West Virginia and make 10 or 20 or $30,000 more than you're making right now, you're likely to do it.
(03:36):
So here's where we are with that legislation. We have a bill introduced in the Senate. There is one coming in the house. I think there is finally broad acceptance in the legislature that we need to pay more, teachers and support professionals. How that all comes together, we're not exactly certain, but it is a recognized priority, and this is something that we're going to keep fighting for.
Aaron Chapin (04:00):
That's excellent. And again, I hear this as well. My daughter's a senior in high school. I hear it from her friends. It's tough to compete with the other professions. I have a question though before we move on to another topic. What do you say to those of our colleagues that say $60,000 or $20 an hour just isn't enough?
Dan Wiedemer (04:17):
Well, it's not enough is the first thing that we would say. Let's recognize that this is a floor that we would be resetting in Pennsylvania. Right now it's 18,500. There are no districts that pay 18,500, but there are a couple that are way too close. There are some starting educators that make in the low to mid 20 thousands. And again, if you're taking out $55,000 or a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, that math does not work for you as a career.
Aaron Chapin (04:48):
Thanks. Well, Dan, there's some good news actually going on, on an issue that's been a priority for us for a long time, and that's securing a cost of living adjustment for many of our retired members. As many of our listeners know, we have tens of thousands of retired PSEA members who have not had a COLA since 2001. Now, fortunately, the Pennsylvania legislature has finally taken some steps to address this. Can you tell us a little bit about the developments of the COLA legislation?
Dan Wiedemer (05:18):
Yes. And the why here, the why we fight for this so hard is really the most important thing. And I know that the two of you and Rachel have pushed us to move this forward for so long because of the conversations that you have with members. And in fact, the same for us. I have a little note on my desk from a retiree from probably six or seven years ago, talking about how hard life is for them and the lack of a cost of living adjustment that they have received in their retirement.
(05:51):
And it's important for us to have those reminders as we go through our day-to-day life because these policies affect real people. And in this issue, it comes down to a simple matter of fairness. And there's a lot of numbers related to this that we probably need to get into to talk about, but it's not really about those numbers. It's about just doing something that is right. Educators who retired before 2001 haven't had a cost of living adjustment in 20-21 years. Think about this.
(06:26):
In that amount of time, food has gone up 88% in cost. Medical care has increased 112%. Housing costs have increased 85%. And these people are on average 84 years old, and their pension is less than $20,000 a year. So it is so difficult for them to survive. And these are the people who made public education what it is in Pennsylvania.
Jeff Ney (06:54):
That's the important part. We have all these people that have dedicated their lives to the education of the youth of Pennsylvania and around the country, and they're not being treated fairly. They're being asked to make a decision between food, homes or medicine, which nobody should have to make that decision.
Dan Wiedemer (07:14):
Nobody should. And this is so obviously the right thing to do. In 2023, in the November elections, Texas had a ballot initiative to amend their state constitution to provide cost of living adjustments for retired school employees. What do you think that passed with? Any guesses?
Jeff Ney (07:36):
You'd think Texas, it barely passed.
Dan Wiedemer (07:38):
84% of voters, in an off year election in the state of Texas believe that this is the right thing to do. So it is certainly the right thing to do in Pennsylvania. Now, a lot of people will point to the fiscal implications of this. We have pension debt in Pennsylvania right now because of some irresponsible actions that occurred a couple of decades ago. But the most important thing to remember there is that given the size of [inaudible 00:08:10] and how few of people would qualify based on their age and the amount that they're receiving in a pension.
(08:19):
This is a rounding error for [inaudible 00:08:23]. It has virtually no impact to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania whatsoever. But for a person who dedicated their entire life to public service and is in their mid-eighties and is trying to stay in their home or is trying to afford their medicine, it makes all of the difference in the world.
Aaron Chapin (08:37):
Absolutely.
Jeff Ney (08:40):
As Aaron pointed out, we were very successful. We got the house to take it up and we got the house to pass the possibility of COLA so it moves over to the Senate, but our members had a big part in that. Their advocacy, calling their legislators and doing all of that. Could you go into just a little bit on your end as far as government relations, how important it is to make sure that our rank and file members stay engaged with a lot of these issues?
Dan Wiedemer (09:06):
So that bill passed the house with a broad bipartisan majority. Every Democrat, a third of Republicans supported that bill. And one of the big reasons for that, it's not just on COLA, it's about stopping vouchers, it's about getting more money for schools. It's about educator shortage. The voices of the members of PSEA is the most powerful asset and tool that we have. And we see that all the time. And this is what's so great about our organization.
(09:39):
We are up against folks who are a very small universe of people who are seeking to attack public education, who are funded by a handful of billionaires, who are influenced by these extremist groups like the Commonwealth Foundation. And there's a few of them, but they have an enormous amount of money. PSEA members, there's 180,000 nearly of us strong, and their voices are so respected and their stories are so powerful. When these folks come to the legislature and we were there with them.
(10:13):
We brought retirees to Harrisburg, they held a press conference, they met with legislators. When you're looking one of these folks in the eye and they tell you about their career and the decisions that they made, it is so impactful and so powerful. And as someone who walks the halls of the Capitol all of the time and is sitting in meetings when there's a critical alert going and you hear that legislator's email inbox dinging over and over again, and they know that those are real constituents expressing concerns or sharing an opinion.
(10:42):
It makes our jobs so much easier. If we didn't have the voices of our members, if there weren't educators reaching out to legislators and sharing their perspectives and encouraging them to do one thing or another, we would not accomplish nearly any of this. And COLA is a really prime example of that.
Jeff Ney (11:00):
And Aaron, Rachel and I, we have this conversation all the time. As the three educators that we are, we can go across the street and we can talk to them all we want, but it's great when the members themselves reach out to these legislators and have that [inaudible 00:11:15]
Aaron Chapin (11:15):
Much more effective. Dan, let's talk about some great things that took place back early in 2023, back in February. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that our school funding system, it's unconstitutional because of the wide disparity of funding between the wealthiest and the poorest school districts. So what's the legislature has done so far to remedy this? And where are we going in 2024 with this?
Dan Wiedemer (11:39):
Well, what have they done so far? I think the answer there is not enough. Not enough. So our funding system in Pennsylvania is so screwed up, I think that's the technical term that the courts may use...
Aaron Chapin (11:53):
For this podcast, yes.
Jeff Ney (11:55):
That's the fiscal terminology that is used.
Dan Wiedemer (11:58):
Yes, that is. It's so bad that a court had to intervene and rule that we were billions of dollars underfunded in Pennsylvania. So the past budget, there was a pretty good start of a down payment, a little over 500 million in basic education funding. But right now, we are in the process of trying to figure out how to resolve that court case in a manner that fairly funds Pennsylvania schools. That's not going to be easy.
(12:28):
That is going to be a really difficult conversation because in Pennsylvania, as a lot of folks know, we have a divided legislature. We have a democratic governor, we have a democratic house, we have a Republican senate. They're unlikely to agree on how much should be put into schools. We are hearing in the Basic Education funding Commission, which is wrapping up right now, that house Democrats are looking for in the neighborhood, $6-6.5 billion dollars to meet our constitutional requirement to fairly fund our schools.
(13:00):
That's not going to be easy to achieve. But the fact that we are having this conversation, the fact that a court of law ordered the legislature to have this conversation puts us in such a better place. I think ultimately that decision may go back to the courts though and may not be resolved by the legislature.
Aaron Chapin (13:22):
Are you feeling optimistic about it?
Dan Wiedemer (13:25):
I am feeling optimistic that members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for example, will understand the importance of public education and that ultimately this will be resolved in a way that benefits students throughout our commonwealth.
Aaron Chapin (13:40):
All right, fingers crossed.
Jeff Ney (13:42):
Dan, let's talk about a little bit about the big picture in politics going forward and what it means for education. The State House has that razor-thin democratic majority, while the US Senate public education allies like Bob Casey are facing tough reelection races. So how do you see all of that playing out with those kinds of margins?
Dan Wiedemer (14:05):
I got my start in politics 20 years ago running campaigns. And one of the best lines I ever heard, and I remember to this day is, "You can't govern if you don't win." And that is why PSEA's political efforts, making sure that we elect people who share our values is so critical. And 2024 is going to be fascinating. You have a rematch between Trump and Biden, which is going to be really interesting. A Senate race in Pennsylvania. Jeff, as you mentioned, that razor-thin house democratic majority, that's been tested time and time again in special elections.
(14:45):
Here's the real storyline though. There are going to be 41 million eligible Gen Z voters in 2024, 8 million who are eligible to vote for the first time. That's greater than the margin that separated the 2020 presidential election, the 2016 presidential election. I believe every presidential election going back to 1996. So we are going to see an entirely different demographic in this election.
(15:19):
We're going to see who is able to engage with these young voters, and it's going to come down to millennials and Gen Z who are the largest voting block in the country by far right now, how they perform and how they turn out.
Jeff Ney (15:32):
Turnout, that was where I was going to go next, because the voter turnout is going to be even more. We saw how important it was during the last election. Getting the voters out this time is going to be even more crucial to make sure that, like you said, we get the people in that are pro-public education candidates.
Dan Wiedemer (15:51):
One of the concerns that a lot of people have is enthusiasm for this election. It seems like we went through something in 2020 with Trump versus Biden. That was a hard election for this country. And I think there's a lot of people who are kind of concerned about the prospect of having that matchup occur again and how it's going to impact turnout and enthusiasm for races down ballot. That's why it's so important for organizations like ours to talk about these elections are not some abstract thing that doesn't impact anybody else.
(16:31):
If we hadn't won elections in Pennsylvania, we wouldn't have passed a cost of living adjustment for retirees. We wouldn't have had record funding for public education. We wouldn't be able to do things related to solving the pipeline. So these elections have direct impacts on public education, on policy, and I know that you two understand how important it is.
Aaron Chapin (16:53):
I was just about to bring up with you that this isn't about Republican versus Democrat. For us at PSEA, this is all about education, right, Dan?
Dan Wiedemer (17:01):
That's one of the best things about PSEA is that we always say that we don't look for a D or an R beside someone's name. We look for an E for public education. And there are not a lot of groups like that that exist in this world any longer. We are so hyper-partisan, but you two know better than I do just how member-driven of an organization we are, what our recommendation process is.
(17:26):
If somebody wants PSEA support, they fill out a questionnaire, they meet with a group of members, those members have a chance to talk with them, to ask them questions. And it doesn't matter. We follow the policy. If you are with us, we are with you. And that's so important to remember.
Aaron Chapin (17:42):
Exactly. And Jeff and I are extremely proud. Those are the kind of relationships that we've developed up in the northeast part of the state where we have a lot of Democrats and Republican legislators, and we've worked over the last decade together with these legislators on both sides of the aisle to make this happen for education.
Jeff Ney (17:59):
Because you're never going to be able to find somebody who is going to agree with you a hundred percent of the time on a hundred percent of the issues. So you have to make sure... It's your living, it's what you're doing, it's your educational, it's your foundation of what you chose to do with your life, and you got to make sure that you've got people that are elected in office that are going to protect what you're doing to help you and your family out.
(18:22):
So along those lines, when we talk about funding, one of the issues that pops up all the time are vouchers. And unfortunately, we had Governor Shapiro make a decision to forcibly come out in favor of tuition vouchers that nearly derailed the budget in Pennsylvania last year. It also mobilized a huge backlash in the educational community that successfully shut down the tuition voucher plan altogether.
(18:51):
But that's just for now. Still, we have a lot of legislators that are very interested in talking about vouchers and making it part of their talking points that they have these past few days. What are your predictions of how that battle is going to go this year as far as tuition vouchers?
Aaron Chapin (19:10):
And try to keep it short, we are running out of time. So I know you could go on and on about this, Dan, but let's try to keep it as concise as we can here.
Dan Wiedemer (19:20):
I could talk about this one for a while. I think we all have deep concerns over what happened the past year because until our schools are fully funded, until we are meeting with the Commonwealth Court, said that we need to meet for our constitutional requirements. There should be no discussion about taking resources away from public schools and giving them to religious and private schools. I wish I had a crystal ball on this one. I think what we are in for is another fight.
(19:51):
The governor has indicated that he views school vouchers as unfinished business. He has talked publicly about supporting the past scholarship program. Fortunately for us, we have some amazing allies in the legislature, particularly in the house. And I don't think those folks are going to turn their backs on public education. This is not a battle that we want to fight, but I think we'll win it.
Aaron Chapin (20:12):
I couldn't agree more, and I look forward to more discussions about this.
Jeff Ney (20:16):
So Dan, I got pop quiz question for you. It's almost like a speed round. So we have the budget address for the governor coming up early in February 6th. So what do you think is going to be the most important items that are related to education in Governor Shapiro's proposed budget?
Dan Wiedemer (20:33):
It's going to be all about money. The question is...
Jeff Ney (20:35):
Really?
Dan Wiedemer (20:35):
All about money. The question is going to be if the governor is going to come out with a bold initiative that addresses what the courts have said we need to address, which is the constitutionally unfunded schools in Pennsylvania. And if he does that, if there are strings attached to it such as a voucher program.
Aaron Chapin (20:55):
Wow. Well, we're about a month away from that actually being given, and we'll have to see if Dan's prediction is going to come true. But unfortunately, Jeff, I think this is a wrap. I know I could have gone...
Dan Wiedemer (21:09):
It feels like we're just a minute in.
Aaron Chapin (21:11):
Well, don't worry, Dan, we're going to have you back again. So listeners, don't worry. We'll have Dan back. Maybe he'll even bring a guest from his government relations team. But again, our guest has been PSEA, director of government relations, Dan Wiedemer. Thank you again, Dan, for being here on our debut podcast. And thanks to all our listeners for tuning into this very first podcast. Do you have some feedback for us?
(21:34):
Maybe you have a question or suggestion and maybe you even want some advice. Jeff's got a lot of good advice.
Jeff Ney (21:41):
Tons.
Aaron Chapin (21:42):
Tons. Please reach out. Send us an email to podcast@psea.org. Again, I'm Aaron Chapin.
Jeff Ney (21:49):
And I'm Jeff Ney.
Aaron Chapin (21:50):
And you have been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover (21:57):
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more, and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.