School Funding Ruling Major Victory for Students, Teachers, and All Pennsylvanians

Hughes-Ontheissues

We won’t stop fighting for our children!

After years of fighting to make sure all of Pennsylvania’s students get a quality, 21st century education, this week, we scored a major victory.

On Tuesday, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled Pennsylvania’s education funding system is unconstitutional. You can read more about that here.

The ruling reaffirms what I, along with my colleagues, have been raising the alarm about and fighting to fix for many years: Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unfair, inequitable, inadequate, and has been hurting so many of our students.

This ruling is paving the way for real change for our students, teachers, parents, and schools and it’s time to ramp up our efforts to right this injustice.

Next month, Governor Josh Shapiro will make his first budget address. After Tuesday’s ruling, he said in a statement that “creating real opportunity for our children begins in our schools, and I believe every child in Pennsylvania should have access to a high-quality education and safe learning environment, regardless of their zip code.”

I believe that, too, and won’t stop fighting to make that a reality.  

As the Senate Democratic Appropriations chairman, I’ve been crunching the numbers and know that Pennsylvania has the funds to invest in our children and ensure they get the best education possible.

In our last budget, we made historic investments in education, and we can build upon that even more.

Let’s invest in our kids, their futures, and ultimately our community’s future, productivity, safety, and overall well-being.

I’m excited to be working with my colleagues on our plans to invest in our schools and our students, and this historic ruling supports our mission.

Let’s fully fund our commonwealth’s public education system, and let’s do it now.