PA School Funding Litigation

For four years, we, our clients, and our partners Education Law Center and O’Melveny & Myers LLP, have been pressing forward with our landmark school funding lawsuit. The lawsuit – William Penn School District, et al. v. Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, et al. – was filed in 2014 on behalf of parents, school districts, and statewide organizations in response to the failure of Pennsylvania’s legislature to adequately and equitably fund public education and provide students with the resources they need to succeed academically. The petitioners in the case are six families, six school districts – William Penn, Panther Valley, Lancaster, Greater Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre Area and Shenandoah Valley – the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 2017, in a landmark ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined there are judicially manageable standards for courts to review school funding issues. The state’s highest court remanded the case to Commonwealth Court for a full trial. 

Now we are one step closer to our day in court, but Pennsylvania’s students need your help to get there. First, we must disprove Senator Scarnati’s claim that the entire case is moot because, he argues, the funding formula adopted by the legislature in 2016 fixed Pennsylvania’s chronic school funding problem. Next, the Court has directed us to provide evidence and legal argument about the standard it should apply in deciding our equal protection claims. That in turn depends on whether, under Pennsylvania’s constitution, education is a “fundamental right” or “important governmental interest,” or whether, as Representative Turzai says, it is has no special place at all in our constitution. 

And after we win these battles, we will then move full speed ahead toward giving Pennsylvania’s students their day in court. We have been traveling the state, gathering evidence from families, educators, and school officials about how the state’s system fails our children, especially children of color and those in low-income communities. We have been consulting with and preparing experts who can explain how the system does not work. And we are getting ready for a trial, preparing to present the strongest possible case.

To get to trial will take resources: an estimated $155,000, in addition to generous support already committed by foundations and major donors. Consider joining your fellow supporters by making a donation in any amount. Whether it is $100, $25, or $5, all gifts make a difference. Your support will help us draft briefs, prepare witnesses, use communications, and then conduct the trial to keep education in the public dialogue.

In the coming months, we are going to prove two things that are clear to everyone in the Commonwealth: education is an important right, and the failure to adequately and equitably fund education continues to inflict harm our students.

Please support this in any way you can. Pennsylvania’s children need our support right now. They do not get a second shot at going to school, so let us make sure the schools they go to are fully funded.