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Editorial Board Memo on Education Funding in Pennsylvania

  By Blog post, Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 22, 2023. November 22, 2023 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. The Basic Education Funding Commission has been charged by Governor Shapiro and legislative leaders with developing a response to Judge Jubelirer’s decision in the school funding lawsuit, which held that every student in Pennsylvania should have—but doesn’t have now—access to a “comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education,” as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Pennsylvania Policy Center has prepared materials for the Commission that address a number of questions raised during its hearing, drawing on both our own analysis of education policy in Pennsylvania and summaries of the relevant academic research. As members of the General Assembly will ultimately be making the critical decisions about… Continue reading

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You’re The Top: Active and Receptive Modes of Being In Life and Sex

  By Love and Sex, Philosophy

This is a draft of a chapter from my forthcoming book Civilization and Its Contents A short precise of the book can be found here. Click here to read or print it  full screen. Continue reading

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Patriarchy, homophobia and sexual fluidity in women

  By Love and Sex

It is commonly held that sexual orientation varies in degrees rather than kind. Some men and women are exclusively interested in sex with their own sex; some are exclusively interested in sex and love with the opposite sex, while many of us fall somewhere between these two poles, being little more or less interested in our own sex or the opposite sex. Kinsey claimed that his research found that that most men and women were not at the far poles of his seven point sexual orientation scale but somewhere in the middle Yet it appears that women tend to be more sexually fluid than men. The percentage of women who have had sex with women is higher than the percentage of men who have had sex with men. More importantly, it appears that women are far more likely than men to pursue sex with both men and women during some… Continue reading

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PPC Statement on PA Court’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Decision

  By Blog post, Statement

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 9, 2023. The Pennsylvania Policy Center (PPC) joins several of its partners in expressing concern about last week’s Commonwealth Court ruling, which struck down Pennsylvania’s opportunity to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The court’s decision was made along procedural lines and is antithetical to RGGI’s purpose, which is to limit damaging carbon emissions in the state and surrounding region. “Among the many steps Pennsylvania can, and should, take to limit climate change, joining RGGI is among the most important. Governor Wolf’s decision to join RGGI is justified by the substantial authority the law grants the Governor to protect our environment,” said PPC’s executive director Marc Stier. This is of even more concern for communities of color and low-income families and is a setback for environmental equity in our Commonwealth. We echo calls for Governor Shapiro to appeal this decision to… Continue reading

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The Contribution of K–12 Education to Economic Growth and Democracy

  By Blog post, Penn Policy Center, Policy Brief

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 8, 2023. VIEW IN A PDF READER, PRINT, OR DOWNLOAD. November 8, 2023 The-Contribution-of-Education-to-Economic-Growth-and-DemocracyDownload Continue reading

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Shuffling the Deck Won’t Solve the Pennsylvania School Funding Crisis

  By Blog post

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 8, 2023. 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.   VIEW FULL-SCREEN OR PRINT Continue reading

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Education Funding and School Achievement

  By Policy Paper

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 8, 2023. November 8, 2023 Context A year ago, Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled that Pennsylvania violates its constitutional obligation to create a “thorough and efficient” system of school funding. In response, legislative leaders and Governor Shapiro have charged the Basic Education Funding Commission with providing a blueprint for General Assembly action that would meet our constitutional obligation. In in developing that blueprint, the General Assembly can learn from what other states have done. Seen from a national perspective, Judge Jubelirer’s decision is not an outlier. In response to similar court decisions, about half the states have added substantial state funding of K–12 education in the last thirty years.  In almost every case, the judicial decisions, like that of Judge Jubelirer, focused on the inequity in school funding created by over-reliance on locally raised revenues to pay for schools. Because Pennsylvania is… Continue reading

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Is Harrisburg Ready for Change?

  By Blog post, Elections and Voting, Penn Policy Center, Taxation

Is new leadership showing a new approach to legislating? Marc Stier, Executive Director Since Democrats finally took control in March, we have seen the House of Representatives pass a raft of legislation and budget proposals that not only reflect the priorities of Democrats and progressives but also has broad support in the state. Little of this legislation has be taken up, however, let alone passed, by the Senate. Three months after the start of the fiscal year, the code bills necessary to complete the budget have not been enacted. Last week, Democrats took a new approach, one that not only has the potential to finish the budget but could radically change the legislative process in Harrisburg for the better. In three key areas, House Democrats, led by Speaker Joanna McClinton and Majority Leader Matt Bradford, put forward code bills and legislation that are bipartisan in spirit and detail. They advance… Continue reading

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Parents Have Rights—But Not to Ban Books

  By Blog post

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 19, 2023. The Senate is now considering SB 7, a bill proposed by Senator Ryan Aument (R-Lancaster), which would require schools to “identify sexually explicit content in school curriculum, materials, and books and notify parents that their child’s coursework includes such content or that a book their child wishes to view in the school library contains explicit content.” Parents would have to “opt in” to allow their children and teens to read or view those materials as part of their coursework and in the library. Without an opt-in, the school would provide the child alternate coursework. Parents do have some rights to limit what their children read and view. And that right is protected, in part, by US constitutional law. Federal courts have recognized that a state has a right to mandate that all children receive an education that it deems is… Continue reading

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What a just war against Hamas would look like.

  By Just War Theory, Middle East

I am concerned about what Israel has been doing and might do in Gaza. Some aspects of Israel’s current policy is morally dubious. At the same time the issues here are far more complicated than most people seem to recognize and what Israel is doing is, at that point, not totally clear. I think charges that Israel is engaging in genocide or ethnic cleansing, are at this point, and to be blunt, absurd. Israel does have a right to respond with military force to the Hamas’ attack. But it should do so in a limited way, and one that respects the moral rules of warfare that prohibit targeting civilians. And that means, among other things, that it must provide or allow others to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza’s caught up in the war. Its unwillingness to do so now is, also to be blunt, morally indefensible. Here is how I… Continue reading