After a landmark trial led a Commonwealth Court judge in February to declare Pennsylvania’s school funding unconstitutional, lawmakers are confronting the next big question: how to fix it. Starting Tuesday, a series of hearings will be held across the state, with...
A commission looking for solutions to make state funding of public education more equitable met for the first time Tuesday in Allentown, where experts and Lehigh Valley superintendents testified about the dire financial straits local school districts find themselves...
State lawmakers heard from Philadelphia parents and school leaders during a Senate Education Committee hearing on Monday, and while the hearing largely centered around school choice programs, it also foreshadowed broader conversations around school funding that will...
Work gets underway this week on crafting a funding formula for Pennsylvania’s public schools that addresses shortcomings in the current funding system that the courts found to be unconstitutional. The 15-member Basic Education Funding Commission will begin a series of...
As Pennsylvania students return to school this fall, they’ll be greeted by teachers trying their best to provide excellent learning opportunities in a state public education system that has been ruled unconstitutional. What many parents, citizens, and advocates don’t...
Alan Foo gulped Gatorade for breakfast on Thursday in preparation for his sweltering job: teaching fifth graders at Bayard Taylor Elementary School, where he grew so dehydrated and groggy this week he had to seek medical attention. Taylor, built in 1907, has...
The LNP | LancasterOnline Editorial Board has published numerous editorials focused on basic education funding in Pennsylvania. I hope this trend continues, at least until the state Legislature adopts a system of funding basic education that meets muster under the...
Pennsylvania lawmakers will embark on a historic effort this fall to reform the commonwealth’s education funding system that a state court earlier this year declared unconstitutional. Public education advocates said Thursday that to succeed in drafting a blueprint for...
This year’s landmark school funding decision was clear: Pennsylvania’s way of paying for public education isn’t working. Less evident is how Pennsylvania’s school funding actually works — and why so many schools are underfunded. Despite a 2016...
William Sax didn’t mince words as he led a group of lawmakers through the sweltering halls of his workplace in July. “You thought it was bad for a couple of minutes here … we come here every day,” Sax, a social studies teacher and building representative at South...
As residents of Hempfield recently learned, the cost associated with school building projects can easily climb above $100 million. For decades, school administrators could turn to what was known as PlanCon to pursue state funding to help ease the local...
A judge ruled earlier this year that the funding system for K-12 schools in the nation’s fifth most populous state is unconstitutional—but educators are still eagerly awaiting solutions to the funding-related problems they encounter every day at work. In February, a...
Lawmakers have plenty of work to do when it comes to figuring out just how to fix the state’s now-unconstitutional public school funding system – and that work is set to begin this fall. The state’s Basic Education Funding Commission – a legislative body tasked with...
While most state funding for Pennsylvania’s public schools was made available upon Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget signing last week, some districts with the greatest need have been left to wait for their share of supplemental funding to emerge from ongoing negotiations in...
