We’re already well into August—nearly two months past Pennsylvania’s June 30th budget deadline—and the Senate continues to put forth unserious proposals.

On Tuesday, August 12, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a $47.6 billion budget—about $3 billion less than the proposal passed by the House last month. Instead of delivering a responsible budget that meets the needs of our students, the Senate has put forward a plan that effectively cuts school funding and ignores urgently needed cyber charter reforms – all while Republican leaders continue to call for more taxpayer-funded handouts for private school vouchers.

Tell your state senator that it’s time to get serious and pass a budget that will honor their commitment — and constitutional duty — to continue filling the adequacy gap in public education funding and ensure at least $378 million in cyber charter savings.

We join our partners in the PA Schools Work coalition in condemning the budget that the Senate Republicans passed on Tuesday, August 12.

In addition to passing a state budget with no increase in state funding for public schools, Senate Republicans are threatening to completely abandon students in Pennsylvania’s most underfunded districts by walking away from the bipartisan commitment they made last year to address the $4 billion adequacy gap in public school funding.  This investment was not just good policy that supported students— it is a constitutional obligation following the Commonwealth Court’s ruling that our school funding system fails to meet the requirements of our state constitution. 

At the same time that Senate Republicans are threatening to abandon their commitment to constitutionally funding our public schools, they have stated unequivocally that they want additional funding for more vouchers for discriminatory private and religious schools. These are upside down priorities that would harm the 90% of students in Pennsylvania who attend public schools.

On top of all of this, Senate Republicans have passed no cyber charter reforms and continue to support allowing Pennsylvania’s cyber charter industry to waste hundreds of millions of Pennsylvanians’ tax dollars every year with little accountability or transparency. Just this week, Pennsylvania’s largest cyber charter announced that it would no longer provide members of the public attending their board meetings with a list of the bills that their board is voting to pay. Instead, anyone attending a meeting who wants to know what the cyber charter school is spending our tax dollars on will now need to file a Right-to-Know request and wait more than a month to receive documents that are routinely available at any other public school board meeting.

Students and communities in every corner of the commonwealth are counting on their state senators and representatives  to pass a budget that will fund our public schools. We cannot afford unserious proposals or playing politics in Harrisburg.  The future of our commonwealth depends on the education we provide to our children today. It is time for Senate Republicans to do their jobs and fulfill their constitutional obligation to Pennsylvania’s students by passing a budget that will continue to close the adequacy gap and include at least $378 million in cyber charter savings.

Click here to contact your senator today.

We continue to closely monitor what is happening in Harrisburg.

Thank you for your support of public education.

The Ed Voters Team

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