It is well known that Pennsylvania’s K-12 schools are inadequately and inequitably funded. But the extent of the problem is not fully understood. This paper uses new data and methods to demonstrate just how unfair—and morally unsustainable—the funding of elementary and secondary education is in the Commonwealth. Click here to print or read the report full-screen. Continue reading
The State Government Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives plans to take up two proposed constitutional amendments proposed by Speaker Cutler that are a direct and serious attack on the Pennsylvania Constitution and the entire framework of government designed by the founders of our country. Indeed, it is hard to think of any constitutional proposal that so directly and radically breaks with the wisdom of those who created the Constitution of the United States and whose work inspired the constitutions of our fifty states. While the constitution of every state is somewhat unique, every one of them enshrines the principle of the separation of power and the checks and balances in the institutions of government they create. Speaker Cutler’s amendments directly attack those principles. The separation of powers doctrine requires that each branch of government—in PA the governor, the General Assembly, and the courts—be delegated one of the three… Continue reading
On Friday, a trial will begin in Commonwealth Court to determine whether Pennsylvania is meeting its constitutional responsibility to give every student an adequate and equitable education. By the standards the state of Pennsylvania sets for itself, it does not. Only 16% of school districts provide an adequate level of funding. And our analysis of the distribution of school funding relative to the share of students who are living in poverty or who are Black or Hispanic reveals inequities that are striking, immoral, and unconstitutional. The benchmark we use to identify the level of funding in each district necessary to provide an adequate education is the 2007 costing-out study, as updated in 2020 by Penn State education professor Matthew Kelley. As required by Act 114, the costing-out study aimed to “arrive at a determination of the basic cost per pupil to provide an education that will permit a student to meet the state’s academic standards.” Three times in the last ten years, a substantial bipartisan majority… Continue reading