Fair funding push moves to the streets

In Pottstown, they declare it a fight for justice; in Reading, a rally for fairness; Lansdowne, a movement to right a wrong, and in Norristown, a call for the children in poor schools to get their due.

Families in school districts which suffer from being underfunded are championing the recently concluded lawsuit against Pennsylvania officials to force equitable state funding of schools, and they’ve taken their message from the courtroom to the streets.

Though a judge won’t issue a ruling in the lawsuit for several months, vigils were held throughout the state last week with the dual purpose of acknowledging four months of testimony for funding equity and putting pressure on legislators to distribute money to schools more fairly without waiting for the court to force change.

The recently concluded lawsuit trial was before Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. It pitted six school districts, four parents, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools and the statewide Pennsylvania chapter of the NAACP against Pennsylvania’s legislative leaders, education officials, and the governor, charging the state’s unfair school funding system violates the education clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The case was presented across 48 days with 41 witnesses, 1,100 exhibits and 14,600 pages of testimony. Closing arguments lasted eight hours across two days.

Observers described the content of testimony as a tale of the haves and have-nots. Claudia DePalma of the Public Interest Law Center, one of the lawyers who took part in the case, said at the Lansdowne vigil that plaintiffs tried to illustrate what it means to be denied the education guaranteed in the state constitution — an education from Pre-K through high school that prepares students for college and careers. Among the items that are required are comfortable buildings to learn in, proper technology, up-to-date books and enough teachers and counselors, she said. Witnesses from poor districts recited a litany of exceptions to that rule.

In the William Penn district, speakers at the Tuesday vigil noted that the suit was meant to represent all children in Pennsylvania. .

“William Penn sued not just for their community but for all the other communities in Pennsylvania who need the funding system to change so they can get the resources they need to provide what they are entitled to under the constitution,” said DePalma.

Norristown Area School District Superintendent Christopher Dormer said the district of 8,000 students is “shortchanged $15 million” every year without fair funding.

“Pennsylvanians are getting the real picture of the discrepancies and unfairness in the system and that’s really important,” said Stephen Rodriguez, superintendent of Pottstown schools and president of the Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools.

Vigil speakers noted that the lawsuit moved forward the awareness of school funding inequity, including the racial disparity that shows “black and brown students are disproportionately harmed” by Pennsylvania’s property tax-school funding system that weighs down communities in poverty with higher tax burden yielding lower school revenue.

“What has happened in the courtroom since November is a historic first — a comprehensive set of testimony and evidence presented about the problems with Pennsylvania’s school funding system,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center. “The court has heard detailed descriptions of the ways that underfunding results in students in low-wealth districts getting an inadequate education — and about extreme disparities between districts, especially affecting students living in poverty and Black and Brown students.”

The time waiting for a ruling in the lawsuit is not the time to sit idle, local vigil speakers emphasized. Now is the time to continue advocacy, said Pottstown School Board member Laura Johnson, noting that Pennsylvania has a budget surplus and Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed a funding boost that would mean $10 million more per year for Pottstown schools.

Years of fair funding proposals have not produced the needed results, and the lawsuit might change that. In the meantime, equity activists aren’t giving up the fight. The witness and determination of local school leaders, parents, students and supporters may be the push that gets fair funding over the finish line at last.