What is our state of education?
It has been over 14 months since Josh Shapiro was elected governor of Pennsylvania in November of 2022.
Soon after his swearing in about a year ago, an education lawsuit verdict was handed down on Feb. 7 by Judge Rene Cohn Jubelirer. The ruling stated that the education provided for students in this state is unconstitutional and there is a deep divide between the “haves” and “have nots.”
Jubelirer’s ruling was very thorough, over 800 pages long, but boiled down to the fact that students who live in districts that are underfunded get an inferior education, and those who live in districts are fully funded or overfunded get an outstanding education.
Shapiro said: “We are all acknowledging that this court has ordered us to come to the table and come up with a better system, one that passes constitutional muster.”
Where are we on this mandate from the court?
“Nurses, cops, teachers — we all know how vital they are for our communities. We don’t have enough and if we don’t act now, the trendline shows greater shortfall.” These words were also spoken by Shapiro. “We should have a glass half full mentality, not a glass half empty.”
Sorry, governor, but nothing has been done to fill up the glass for schools in dire need of additional money. Underfunded districts cannot pay teachers what they are worth, or even enough to keep them beyond the first year. Most teachers move on to greener pastures — meaning wealthier, higher-paying districts — as soon as they can, leaving the poor districts in disarray. They cannot get substitutes, and many times classes are placed together so that one teacher is teaching 60 or more students, administrators are teaching, anyone who can breathe is trying to teach.
Salaries for teachers are abysmal in poor school districts in relation to the educational requirements they must have, and in these districts, teachers themselves buy many supplies for their students because the district does not have the money to pay for these items.
These schools do not have enough funding for foreign-language educators, music educators for all levels, counselors, sports teams including coaches and uniforms, water without high levels of lead, heating systems that work in the winter, cooling systems that work, books, computers, and on and on.
Gov. Shapiro, when the budget was approved this past year, you said the money given to underfunded schools was in your own words, “a down payment.” These students have been waiting a lifetime to be properly funded. Those of us who are advocates for fair funding are watching carefully to see what you will set aside for these children who need so many educational additions to their schools.
The education hearings held across the state are finished, and your budget is due in early February. You know that education advocates across the state were looking to you as a voice of reason.
Trusting your campaign promises, we believed that you understood the plight of underfunded schools and would help them attain what they are lacking, especially since the lawsuit stated that educational funding in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional. As attorney general and as a candidate for governor, you stated this issue must be addressed.
We are very underwhelmed by the lack of backbone and grit you have shown in regard to keeping your word on helping impoverished schools, and we hope that your budget will change this perception.
We thought you would be a strong advocate for helping students attending poor schools to attain what wealthy school districts are able to supply their students. That is not at all what you have done.
Instead, you are increasing tax allowances to businesses through EITC monies and other tax credits to the tune of almost $500 million to be siphoned from public monies to fund private and religious schools, and also back vouchers for such places.
At the same time, these schools as well as charter and cyber charter have no accountability to the state as the public schools do. It is a terrible and unfair system, and the inequities are getting worse.
Please stand up for our public schools where most of Pennsylvania’s children are educated. That is why we elected you. We took you at your word and believed what you said you would do. So far, we have seen nothing.
We are ready to help you be successful. Let us work with you to change the backward and unfair Pennsylvania system of public-school funding.