Reformers appeal dismissal of school funding lawsuit

The plaintiffs want the court to reinstate a 2014 case, William Penn School District vs Pennsylvania Department of Education, that alleges the General Assembly has for decades failed to provided adequate funding for a quality education. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2015.

The group making the challenge includes the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, the NAACP, six school districts and seven parents. They are represented by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and Education Law Center-PA.

The Philadelphia School District is not part of the lawsuit, but two parents in the case have children who attend city schools.

Several justices appeared reluctant to “micromanage” lawmakers who divide more than $10 billion in annual aid to nearly 500 school districts in Pennsylvania, and already devote more than half that budget to the 125 poorest districts. But one wondered if reformers shouldn’t at least get to air their grievances at trial.

Elias said that Pennsylvania had the nation’s largest funding gap between low- and high-income districts, because parents in wealthier ZIP codes supplement the school budget with property taxes and other funds that dwarf what low-income communities could raise. The budget-per-student ranges from about $10,000 to $28,000 across the state, the plaintiffs said.

That means that students who need the most resources get the least, said Elias, who called the system “unconscionable.”

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has raised education funding by about $350 million this school year and has steered more money to low-income districts. Still, he joined the Republican-led legislature in calling school funding a political problem that should be resolved at the statehouse, not the courthouse.

“The court cannot determine what constitutes an adequate education,” lawyer Patrick Northen argued for legislative leaders during a City Hall courtroom hearing packed with policymakers and parents in Philadelphia.

The justices did not indicate when they would rule on the issue, which has long been a contentious one across the country.

Courts in 27 other states have waded in to the school funding debate, Elias said, most recently in Connecticut, where a judge was appalled by the disparities between Bridgeport’s city schools and neighboring ones in upscale Fairfield.

Last week, Judge Thomas Moukawsher of State Superior Court in Hartford, Conn., ordered a legislative fix within six months in school funding case, which is more than a decade old.

Elias wants the state Supreme Court to do likewise, in finding the funding system unconstitutional.

“So you want us to lean on the state legislature? I’m not sure that’s our role,” Justice Max Baer said.

The panel of four men and three women feared wading into “legal quicksand” if they accept the challenge of finding a solution to the school funding and achievement gap. They questioned whether spending the same amount per child would produce equal outcomes, a conundrum that other states have faced as they moved toward a progressive funding structure.

A lawyer for the state Education Department complained that reformers want the court to seize control of a third of the state’s $31 billion budget.

Elias said the state needed to provide districts with the necessary funds to ensure that all students could pass the biology, algebra and other tests now required to graduate high school in Pennsylvania. He said that funding was “not a zero sum game” given that wealthier districts could raise additional money for new buildings and programs. — (AP)