February 7, 2024, will mark the one-year anniversary of the Commonwealth Court decision declaring Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional.
We invite you to join us in the Capitol Rotunda at noon for an event with our partners from the PA Schools Work coalition to call on Governor Shapiro and state lawmakers to make the right to a quality education that is guaranteed in the Pennsylvania Constitution a reality for students in every district in the commonwealth.
Click HERE to register for the event.
On January 11th, the Basic Education Funding Commission approved a detailed and comprehensive report that recognized the commonwealth has a constitutional responsibility to provide adequate and equitable funding for public education to meet students’ needs. The BEFC report documented a $5.4 billion gap in funding that must be closed in order to bring the commonwealth into constitutional compliance.
If Governor Shapiro and state lawmakers fail to adequately address funding shortfalls that harm the poorest school districts in the commonwealth, they will find themselves back in court, defending an unconstitutional and unpopular school funding system. And they will abandon PA’s students who need the most and have the least in their schools yet again.
At the February 7th event, we will be reading quotes from the trial and the court decision and making some visits to senators who will be in session that day. (And we will bring you an Ed Voters t-shirt if you would like one!)
If coming to Harrisburg in February doesn’t work with your schedule, no worries! We will have plenty of ways you can help that don’t involve coming to the Capitol in February, including asking your school board to pass a resolution in support of a funding system that will ensure constitutional funding for PA’s public schools. Click HERE to receive more information about the resolution, which we anticipate will be ready in mid-February.
Looking forward, please keep in mind these dates:
February 6-Governor Shapiro’s 2024-2025 state budget address
May 8th-PA Schools Work Advocacy Day in Harrisburg
Thank you for your continued support of public education. This is going to be a big year for advocacy to support our public school students!
PS: Not one single additional tax dollar should go to discriminatory private schools. Period.
