It is difficult to find a beginning for this post. Public schools in Pennsylvania have been underfunded for decades. That means that tens of thousands of students’ academic lives were diminished. This was allowed by cowardly state legislatures and governors including our present representatives. It was fueled by greed and discrimination.
Allow me to digress into my personal financial life. I was taught to avoid debt whenever possible. Operating in a deficit is a failure especially if funds are available for debt remediation. If I had a debt I paid it off ASAP.
Our state government does not operate that way. The past sins regarding education funding are ripe for a future post. I want to stick with the 2024-2025 budget year. In February of 2023, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the public school funding paradigm was unconstitutional and directed the governor and state legislature to remedy this disaster. This would require (in 2023 dollars) a 5.4 billion dollar expenditure.
Now, the State of Pennsylvania started this budget year with a 14 billion dollar surplus (almost 3x the needed amount). Did they directly tackle the funding problem as directed by the Commonwealth Court? No! They concocted a seven year scheme that still will not provide the recommended adequacy funding. This year’s bump in adequacy is only 11%. This is outrageous stupidity and failure. Why? Every year that adequate funding is not provided, Pennsylvania’s children are cheated and their futures are affected. To add salt to the wound, no timeline for constitutional compliance is included in the budget. The PA Senate refused to consider HB 2370 legislation passed in the House that included a clean timeline for the investment necessary to close the adequacy gap and ensure that school funds will meet constitutional compliance.
The entire adequacy gap should have been allotted (funds were available). These funds should have been directed to remediation and enrichment of all students via class size reductions and more knowledgeable/discerning teachers. Funding adequate physical infrastructure is a separate issue and would be funded in several ways. Please follow me on this because it is necessary that more people know where their tax dollars are going.
First, the State of Pennsylvania should not be funding private and religious schools. This is now being done to the tune of 525 million dollars on tax credit school vouchers through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC). Many of these schools have explicit and baked-in discrimination based on LGBTQ status, religion, academics, disability, pregnancy or abortion and “right fit”. These programs have very weak reporting requirements with no information about who benefits from the programs or students’ educational outcomes. Obviously, they see themselves as an entitled entity.
Secondly, let’s drop the corporate welfare state. Pennsylvania doles out billions of dollars to pseudo capitalists/developers every year. These corporate welfare recipients are very successful and quite capable of funding their expansions/projects and developments. This is well documented by left, center and right wing political entities including Penn Future and Commonwealth Foundation. This is money that should be used for scores of majoritarian supported issues including schools.
Finally, let’s get rid of the tax loopholes (billions of dollars). There are too many to mention but picture Pennsylvania as a wedge of Swiss cheese. You get the picture.
All of the above is outrageous. It should anger you especially if you have children. Do some research.