After years of fighting for fair education funding and seven years after the lawsuit was filed, Pennsylvania’s students and families are finally getting their day in court.

Click HERE to watch a livestream of the lawsuit proceedings. There is real value in watching this firsthand and demonstrating public interest in the lawsuit.  I most strongly encourage you to tune in when you can.  I put in ear buds and listen when I am walking my dog. I listen when I am driving. And I watch it when I take a break from other work during the day.

On Friday, hundreds Pennsylvanians came to Harrisburg from rich and poor districts; rural, urban and suburban districts; and from communities in every corner of the commonwealth. We chanted, we sang, and we marched to the courthouse to mark the beginning of this historic trial. (Watch the video above to see how wonderful it was!)

Be part of the most important conversation happening in Pennsylvania today!

This landmark trial will prove that the Pennsylvania legislature’s school funding system violates students’ constitutional right to a thorough & efficient public education.

Education Voters of Pennsylvania has teamed up with Children First to make sure every voice is included in this historic conversation.

• Follow @EdVotersPA and @ChildrenFirst PA on Twitter. We will be live tweeting during the trial so you can see what is being said during real time. Like, Retweet, and comment. And use the hastags #FundOurSchoolsPA and #SchoolFundingTrial.
• Follow Ed Voters on Facebook. We will be posting updates and actions that you can share with your networks.
• Visit www.FundOurSchoolsPA.org for daily recaps of trial proceedings and to tune in and watch the livestream of the trial. After Thanksgiving, we will have sign-up links for watch parties if you’d like to watch the trial with a group.
• Look for other actions that you can take later this week.

Powerful testimony in the first days of the trial

On Monday, Panther Valley superintendent, David McAndrew, provided emotional and heartbreaking testimony about conditions in his district.  

Seventy-five kindergartners  share one toilet and two urinals. Young students learn in classes of 29 students with one teacher, and no support from paraprofessionals or aides. He described a high school locker room with no working showers, 37 students in a science class who share 8 microscopes and seemingly endless impossible choices facing teachers and school leaders because of a lack of funding.

Prepare to be outraged and then take action

Lawyers for the defense made this statement on the opening day of the trial:

“I’m not going to stand here and say all of the school buildings … are the Taj Mahal,” said Patrick Northen, a lawyer for House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster). But he said children have “chairs to sit in, desks or tables to write at, walls and roofs, working plumbing” — and adequate opportunities to achieve.

“The fact that some students are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities offered or perhaps are more industrious doesn’t negate the fact that opportunities exist,” Northen said.

We expect a steady stream of appalling statements like this from defense lawyers in the trial, from some state lawmakers, and from talking heads who blame children for being poor and believe that they deserve nothing more than a building (with a leaking roof) and a desk for their K-12 education.

We need our friends and neighbors to know about the trial and to know what attorneys for legislative leaders are saying.  

We need our communities to understand who cares about Pennsylvania’s children and who doesn’t.

This trial gives us a once in a generation opportunity to build a movement to demand that the legislature fix Pennsylvania’s broken and unconstitutional system that hurts the commonwealth’s most vulnerable children.