Category: K-12 Education in PA

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Statement in response to the Basic Education Funding Commission Report

  By Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Statement

The adoption of the Basic Education Funding Commission Report yesterday is a major step forward in meeting our constitutional and moral responsibility to fund education fully and fairly in Pennsylvania. The first step in this process was a Court decision by a Republican judge holding that our current system of funding education is not constitutional. Yesterday, the state took a second step. We are grateful that a majority of the Commission, including the Governor and the members of the General Assembly, provided a detailed and specific plan to meet the constitutional and moral requirement of adequately and equitably funding our schools—a plan we believe is fair. The plan comes very close to meeting our expectations. It sets a plausible and defensible standard for evaluating the adequacy of funding in every school district. By that standard, we need $5.4 billion per year in new funding to close the adequacy gap in a… Continue reading

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We Can’t Fix Education By Shuffling The Deck

  By Blog post, Education, K-12 Education in PA

In February 2023, Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer called for a new funding system in Pennsylvania to fulfill the state’s obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education for its children. But, opponents of increased education funding cite the state’s high per-student spending, compared to other states, as a reason not to increase our total spending on K-12 schools. The comparison to other states’ spending per student is misleading in multiple ways. To begin with, it does not consider variations in the cost of living and education expenses. Pennsylvania’s education spending per student is below the average of the 11 New England and other Mid-Atlantic states that are closest to Pennsylvania with regard to the costs of education. In addition, overall levels of funding skirt the core issue in Judge Jubelirer’s decision—that in Pennsylvania, school funding is highly inequitable from one school district to another. The evidence presented to Judge Jubelirer,… Continue reading

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What Would an Equitable Voucher System Look Like?

  By Blog post, Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Vouchers

Pennsylvania’s Republican legislators support a voucher program they say is meant to help a small number of students who attend schools they claim are failing. (They don’t mention that those schools are also severely underfunded.) However, these legislators and their supporters, including billionaires Betsy DeVos and Jeffrey Yass, have made no secret that their ultimate goal is to replace our public schools with a system of private schools financed by vouchers. It is doubtful that such a plan could meet the requirements of the Pennsylvania Constitution. When the education clause was added to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1873, it specifically required funding of “public schools.” And, changing the words to “public education” in the constitutional revision of 1967 does not alter the import of the phrase. Could a voucher plan be designed to meet the two goals for public education held by the framers of the… Continue reading

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Senate Again Refuses to Fund State’s Most Dire School Districts

  By Blog post, Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center

Senate Again Refuses to Fund State’s Most Dire School Districts – Marc Stier, Executive Director, Penn Policy Center “The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate came back today for a rare August session. It took a step toward completing the budget by passing a code bill on several uncontroversial issues. However Republican senators have failed to pass a code bill with language that would allow the expenditure of $100 million for Level Up for the state’s 100 least-well-funded schools. Senate Republicans keep talking about helping kids in so-called “failing schools.” The only schools that don’t provide a good education are those that are underfunded and that, today, they failed again to fund.” Continue reading

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Saving Public Education in Pennsylvania, Where It Began

  By Blog post, Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Published op-eds

Originally published on PennCapital-Star.com The budget stalemate in Harrisburg hasn’t been primarily about whether some budget line items go up or down by a few hundred million dollars. Those kinds of disputes are easy to resolve. Rather, it’s been about whether Pennsylvania will start down a radical, extremist path that leads to the destruction of public education in our state. As we celebrate the birth of our country, we should remember that public education is central to the ideals that led to, and grew out of, American independence. And we in Pennsylvania should resolve not to compromise those ideals as the state passes its budget this year. The American Revolution was not just a political revolution against the King and Parliament. It was also a social revolution against the hierarchal society they represented, a society in which everyone knew and kept in their place. It was a revolution to give… Continue reading

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The Lifeline Scholarship Program Would Undermine Public Education

  By Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Testimony, Vouchers

My name is Marc Stier. I’m the executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center. Thank you for inviting me to testify today.  I’m here today with my fellow advocates for education—including the leaders of unions of teachers, who have dedicated their lives to our children—to speak against the Lifeline scholarship program put forward by Senate Republicans.  The advocates for that program say that it will not take money from our public schools. This argument is thoroughly disingenuous. While money for the program comes from the General Fund and not from individual school districts, Republicans keep reminding us that General Fund revenues are not unlimited. The accumulated surplus that is supporting the operating budget this year—and is projected to support it for the next five years—will eventually run out. Any funding that goes to the Lifeline scholarship program will come from revenues that are needed to meet our constitutional and moral… Continue reading

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Penn Policy Speaks in Support of House Budget on K-12 Education

  By K-12 Education in PA, Statement

Remarks by Marc Stier, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, at a PA School Work press conference in support of the House passed budget for 2023-2024 In March, Governor Shapiro put forward a proposed budget that many of us said had the right priorities but did not offer enough funding for critical needs, including K-12 education. Last week, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a budget—with the support of Governor Shapiro—that added funding in many of those critical areas. The House budget adds the basic education fund to the governor’s proposal. It includes new funding for the Level Up program, which provides additional money for the 108 least-well-funded school districts and adds money for special education and for repairing toxic schools. The House budget, which Governor Shapiro embraced, is a good down payment on what the state ultimately must do to meet the constitutional and moral requirements to fully… Continue reading

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Alternative Approaches to Making a Down Payment on Education Equity

  By K-12 Education in PA

In this paper we compare the impact of two proposals: one in the Shapiro administration’s budget plan and one by the PA Schools Work (PASW) campaign for a down payment on fair and full funding of K-12 schools regarding how far they go in reducing the state’s inequitable and inadequate school funding for school districts on the basis of class, race, and Hispanic ethnicity.1 We show that the PASW proposal, by spending more money and distributing some of that money through the Level Up program, takes a larger step forward in pursuit of the goal of giving every child the “thorough and efficient” public education required not only by basic notions of fairness and equity but by the Pennsylvania Constitution. Continue reading

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PBPC Supports Senator Vincent Hughes’s K-12 Funding Plan

  By Budget, K-12 Education in PA, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Statements

Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center joined a press conference on Thursday in support of Senator Vincent Hughes’s plan to invest $3.1 billion in K-12 education. The plan would add over $2 billion in K-12 funding from general operating funds, including  $750 million in basic education funding; $400 milllion for additional for the Level Up program, which provides additional funds to the 100 least-well-funded school districts; $250 million for special education; $275 million to reimburse school districts for the cost of charter schools; $150 million for early childhood education; $125 million for academic support programs; $100 million for mental health supports; and $100 million to recruit more teachers. Sneator Hughes also proposed spending $1 billion from Rainy Day Funds for remediation of toxic schools. Senator Hughes was joined at the press conference by Senators Sharif Street, Tim Kearney, Jimmy Dillon, and Nick Miller and Represenative Elizabeth Fiedler. PBPC Director Marc Stier’s… Continue reading