Soon after she had gone to jail for trying to get her children a better education, Kelley Williams-Bolar’s teenage daughter Jada confronted her mother with an accusation that will stick with her forever.��

“You’re not there for me,” said Jada, now 26. Like the rest of her family, Jada still struggles with her mother’s 2011 felony conviction for sending Jada and her sister Kayla to a suburban school outside Akron, Ohio, using their grandfather’s address.

By the time Jada stood firmly in front of her, Williams-Bolger had spent nine days in jail, overwhelmed by how a felony could upend their lives, jeopardizing future housing and employment opportunities. She started to defend herself, then went silent. She knew Jada was right.

“But you know, it was my mind that wasn’t there. It wasn’t there for years,” conceded Williams-Bolar, a longtime educator and child care provider. “…Honestly, it destroyed me. It was a lot to deal with. I wasn’t the same mom for my daughters.”

Years after their prosecutions and forced removal from districts, families across the country like Williams-Bolar’s are still paying the price, economically and emotionally, after being prosecuted for acting in the best interest of their children. 

In Pennsylvania, one family ultimately owed over $10,000 for tuition and amassed legal fees into the six figures for keeping their child enrolled in a suburban school after moving out of the district three months before the end of the school year. In Connecticut, Tanya McDowell, whose family was experiencing homelessness, used her babysitter’s address to enroll her five year old in a Norwalk school. She was convicted on larceny and unrelated drug charges, serving .��

Outside of the legal ramifications, many families still struggle with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress, their family relationships and work suffering as a result. Their children have felt at times like they had lost their parents and interest in school. 

Now seven decades after the Supreme Court outlawed sorting children by race and promised quality education for all in the landmark Brown v. Board decision, experts are beating the drum that continuing to exclude children from quality schools based on their home addresses perpetuates segregation. Advocates have also called for an end to the practice of prosecuting parents who, knowingly or unknowingly, disregard zone lines when enrolling their children.

Williams-Bolar’s daughters were zoned for Akron Public Schools, 15 minutes but seemingly a world apart from Copley-Fairlawn, the predominantly white suburban district where her father lived and often cared for her daughters. Visiting Copley’s schools, she saw acres of land, science fairs, a sprawling greenhouse, and a full computer room. Akron’s schools at the time had rapidly decaying infrastructure. Styrofoam cups filled with dirt were the plants in her daughters’ science classes. 

Night and day, she said. She just couldn’t have anticipated what the cost of enrolling her kids in Copley would be. 

Months later, her trial began. Intense scrutiny on the case made their family recipients of unwanted, international attention. A school district contractor showed up to their front door, looking inside their refrigerator, closets, bathrooms, counting each toothbrush. Teachers and students at her daughters’ school made snide remarks about their mother’s jail time. They’d catch neighbors’ side eyed, judgemental gazes. 

White men started driving slowly by their home at any time of day, never speaking, only staring. This would happen about a dozen separate times. 

Williams-Bolar sometimes stayed in her room crying for days, not knowing how much time was passing. Her depression lingered well after . 

Three years on probation also meant the family couldn’t travel to see relatives in the south. She was also barred from visiting her father in prison for months. Though his involvement with her school enrollment case was dropped, soon after the state convicted him on fraud charges related to government benefits. Williams-Bolar maintains the case against her father would not have been pursued without the unprecedented spotlight on her family. 

“Once you get in the lion’s den, they’re not just gonna let you go,” she said. 

He served 11 months in prison, and died in its hospital one month before release. 

“He loved going out barbecuing in the front yard. He loved all his grand babies coming over, always listening to music,” said Kayla, now 30. “I mean, the greatest grandpa a girl could ever ask for. Damn near like a father to me, and I’d do anything to have him back. But here we are.”

Investigations in and recently confirmed districts still regularly confront families suspected of living outside of their boundaries. Today, their methods are usually less public, with districts hiring private investigators or threatening prosecution to get families to disenroll their children. The thousands known to be kicked out of their schools for address sharing are disproportionately Black and brown. 

In at least 24 states, parents can face criminal prosecution, fines and jail sentences for address sharing. Only one, Connecticut, has decriminalized the common practice. 

To reduce the scale of the issue and promote integration, districts could adopt county boundaries, encompassing more diversity and better reflecting work-life patterns, rather than neighborhood lines that mirror racist housing segregation. But they often “lack the political will,” to do so; quality schools remain scarce by design, said civil rights lawyer Erika Wilson. 

And though Williams-Bolar knows a friend was similarly confronted by the district who believed her family lived outside the boundary, they never prosecuted her or asked her to remove her two children. The friend was related to a prominent leader in the NAACP. Williams-Bolar later met a former Copley student who alleged he lived in Akron, too, and that the school knew at the time, but let him stay because he was an athlete. 

“I think it’s common at these, these selective schools. The problem is it’s very, very selectively enforced,” said Tim DeRoche, author, researcher and founder of Available to All, a watchdog organization. 

‘I remember my wife losing her hair’

Around the same time Williams-Bolar was navigating her trial, just one state over, six year old Fiorella Garcia pleaded with the governor of Pennsylvania to drop charges against her parents. Crying, she said she didn’t want to go into foster care. 

In 2012, her parents Hamlet and Olesia Garcia faced up to seven years in prison, felony convictions, and losing custody of their daughter. The suburban Lower Moreland Township School District alleged Fiorella lived outside of its zone, in Philadelphia. Fiorella and Olesia lived temporarily with her grandparents in Lower Moreland, but failed to notify the district that they had moved out. 

In records reviewed by The 74, the Garcias repeatedly offered to pay the district the cost for Fiorella to finish the school year in Lower Moreland so as to not interrupt her schooling. Their requests were denied. 

Their mug shots headlined local news the night they were arrested, alongside headlines that alluded to tax fraud. Olesia, who owned a private insurance company, risked losing her license and business. Their address made its way into coverage, and soon after, their car was vandalized.  

“This has never got off my head … I remember my wife losing her hair,” Hamlet Garcia said, trying to hold back tears. Losing so much sleep, he tried medication and experienced chest pains, which he attributes to the stress. 

Their tide only changed after leaving their public defender, who wanted them to settle for a guilty plea. The Garcias incurred close to $100,000 in debt to instead hire a high profile law team from Florida, money they say would have gone toward their daughters’ college education or family vacations. 

Ultimately, all . The family paid $10,752 “tuition” to the district and a $100 fine. 

In the decade that has followed, Garcia has devoted most of his time to learning education law, organizing for school choice and Republican political campaigns, feeling betrayed by the Democrats he felt were responsible. Fiorella, now 17, is about to graduate from high school. 

Telling her story and becoming a parent advocate has been Williams-Bolar’s “medicine.” She feels she’s a part of changing education policy to expand access to quality schools and “leave a legacy for my dad because he didn’t deserve none of that. He didn’t deserve to die in jail.” 

Today she works at one of Akron Public Schools’ high schools as a paraprofessional: the superintendent refused to fire her after the ordeal.

“Honestly,” said Kayla, who’s also considering going back to school to be an educator, “I’m still trying to heal.” 

Democratic lawmakers in Harrisburg took the first steps last week to provide $5.1 billion in new funding for Pennsylvania public schools to close a gap between the wealthiest and poorest districts that a court last year declared unconstitutional.

The legislation in the state House, proposed by Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), follows the recommendation of a bipartisan commission on education funding to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order to fix the education funding system.

The General Assembly has a constitutional imperative to end the funding disparity starting with the 2024-25 budget, Democratic lawmakers say.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“The judiciary has spoken and we have a responsibility to address the unconstitutional nature of our education system,” House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) told the Capital-Star on Monday. “For me, I don’t know how we can deal with anything else without dealing with that.”

But Harris’ Republican counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), criticized the proposed legislation for not including revenue to pay for the plan. Grove said he also believes resetting the system through zero-based budgeting is the answer.

“Nothing in the Commonwealth Court ruling says we need more money,” Grove said.

House Democrats have a narrow one-vote majority and are likely to pass a budget that reflects their legislative priorities. But Republicans who control the state Senate fired an opening shot in budget negotiations last week clearly signaling their intention to slash Gov. Josh Shapiro’s $48.8 billion spending plan.

On May 7, the upper chamber passed a bipartisan reduction in the personal income tax and eliminated the tax on electricity that would add up to an estimated in revenue.

The Senate also took steps to to provide tax dollars of up to $10,000 for private school tuition. An impasse over the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) program stalled budget negotiations for nearly six months last year.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) in a statement Monday noted that the General Assembly has provided record increases in funding in the last two budgets. In 2022, the Legislature approved a $525 million increase, but less than the $1.25 billion Gov. Tom Wolf proposed in his final budget. Last year, lawmakers agreed on a $567 million increase; Shapiro had proposed a $900 million in his first budget.

“There are 500 school districts across the commonwealth, and each have their own definition of what fair funding means. Both the majority and minority Basic Education Funding Commission reports did reach agreement on formula modifications to provide predictability and stability to school districts,” Pittman said, adding, “we will continue to look for ways to reach common ground and respect taxpayers as part of this year’s budget.”

The fair funding proposal in Sturla’s forthcoming legislation is the product of more than a decade of litigation and days of hearings by the Basic Education Funding Commission, which include lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate and members of Shapiro’s cabinet.

“Nothing in this piece of legislation should come as a surprise to anybody,” House Education Committee Chairperson Peter Schweyer (D-Lehigh) said. “It is the work that the legislature has been doing ever since the fair funding decision came down.”

Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer said in a that the General Assembly has not fulfilled its legal mandate and has deprived students in school districts with low property values and incomes of the same resources and opportunities as children in wealthier ones.

The funding commission found that 371 of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts have an adequacy gap, meaning they spend less than $13,704 per pupil. That’s the median per pupil spending by the districts that meet the state’s academic performance standards.

The decision, which lawmakers chose not to appeal, followed a four-month trial in a lawsuit filed in 2014 by a group of parents and school districts who claimed the state had failed the state Constitution’s mandate to provide a thorough and efficient system of public education.

Cohn Jubelirer, a conservative judge, did not instruct the General Assembly on how to fix the system, leaving the solution for the Legislature and executive branch to determine.

Last year, the Basic Education Funding Commission held dozens of hearings across the state where students, parents, educators, and administrators spoke about the challenges and deprivation they faced in the state’s neediest districts, both urban and rural.

In January, the commission voted 8-7, largely along party lines, to adopt a report that determined there is a $5.4 billion gap between what schools receive now and adequate funding as determined by the spending of the state’s most academically successful schools.

The $5.4 billion figure includes $291 million that is the responsibility of school districts that have lower taxes despite less-than-adequate funding. The remaining $5.1 billion is the state’s responsibility.

Sturla’s bill would also include $1 billion in tax relief over the next seven years for districts that have hiked taxes in an effort to generate adequate funding, money to reset the baseline funding that all school districts receive, and it would reform to provide several hundred million in savings for school districts.

“This is a very comprehensive piece of legislation,” Schweyer said.

Republican budget maven Grove said the proposal doesn’t include the property tax increase and fails to provide a revenue source other than the state’s reserves. Shapiro’s office has projected that the state’s surplus and rainy day fund will total $14 billion at the end of this fiscal year on June 30.

“I’d actually like to thank them for being honest … on how much they want to spend over the next seven years,” Grove said of the Democratic plan. “If they want to spend the money over the next seven years it needs to come with a tax increase.”

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Education Law Center, said Grove’s assertion that the Commonwealth Court order doesn’t require the state to spend more is incorrect.

“What they’re hanging that on is this line [from the decision] that the remedy doesn’t need to be entirely financial,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said, adding that the ruling identified deficiencies in funding that affected the ability of districts to provide sufficient staff, instruments of learning and safe and modern schools.

Harris, the House Democrats’ chief budget negotiator, said he is open to proposals from House and Senate Republicans.

“If there is another proposal that they have to address the Commonwealth Court ruling, we would love to see it. We can talk about that,” he said.

But faced with an obligation to Pennsylvania’s students and the possibility of additional litigation if the Legislature fails to act, Harris said doing nothing is not an option.

“This is not a nice-to-have. This is a must-do,” Harris said.

(This article was updated at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 14, 2024, to include a statement from Sen. Majority Leader Joe Pittman.)

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

But new federal data has given researchers some cause for optimism, suggesting efforts to make teaching more financially viable with strategies such as paying student teachers have helped to move the needle. 

From 2018 through 2022, enrollment in teacher preparation programs grew 12% nationally, or by about 46,231 more candidates, according to a from Pennsylvania State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis.

Nine states lead the pack with notably higher bumps in teacher prep programs in recent years: Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina and, with the highest average growth, Maryland. 

The modest upswing, seen both in enrollment and completion rates, during some of the most strained years in American education, has surprised experts.

“It was encouraging to see … at the height of the pandemic, it certainly was not what we were expecting,” said Jacqueline King, research and policy consultant with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. 

Only 11 states saw continued enrollment declines in the prep programs during the last three years, among them Montana and Minnesota. 

“I think that all the work that we’ve been doing around grow your own, apprenticeships and residencies… to open up more affordable pathways into teaching are starting to bear some fruit, which is amazing and fantastic,” King added.

Contributing factors also include federal pandemic relief funds and new laws in states such as and that pay student teachers. In Maryland, for instance, some during their year long teaching residency. 

“It’s real,” said King. “It’s enough money that you’re not thinking, how am I gonna do student teaching and have a part time job?” 

Still, researchers caution, the growth is not nearly at the pace required to match hiring demand. Teacher shortages are , and in key areas like special education and math. 

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs in just one decade — about fewer teachers are prepared annually. Compounding social, political and economic strains fueled the decline, including a major recession and education reform efforts that negatively impacted public perception of teaching and America’s schools. 

By 2021, only five areas had bucked the overall trend, with more enrollees than a decade prior: Arizona, Mississippi, Texas, Washington and Washington, D.C. Texas’s growth can be attributed to rapid expansion of a particular alternative program, Teachers of Tomorrow, . 

“Over the last seven years, we’re kind of treading water in terms of the number of teachers,” said Ed Fuller, education professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of the most recent analysis. “We don’t need to be where we were in 2010 because we don’t have as many students, but we need to be a lot closer to that than we are now.”

About in K-12 public schools nationwide in 2022 than before the pandemic. The steepest drops are in the younger grades, partially a result of declining birth rates.

On the whole, districts did not pump the brakes on hiring teachers because of the alarming 2% drop in student enrollment. Flush with expiring pandemic relief funds, schools added 15,000 teaching positions last school year. 

Even as full-time school staffing reached an all time high, a quarter of districts had fewer teachers per student than they did in 2016. 

The demand for teachers is far from met, with about 55,000 teaching jobs open nationwide. Since 2008, the decline of teachers in training has impacted schools in every corner of the country. 

Even places like Pennsylvania, whose supply of teachers historically was so abundant that many newly-credentialed teachers were sent out of state, are of a shrinking teacher workforce. Its surplus has gradually disappeared over six years. 

“People weren’t paying attention,” said Fuller, who recommended that public figures talk up the professions’ value and that the legislature take on teacher scholarships to tailor recruitment for local needs. Scholarships could be earmarked for teachers of color, math educators, or those serving high-poverty schools, for example. 

But if districts and states, tasked with building diverse, robust teaching pools, are focused solely on producing new candidates, King cautioned efforts would be in vain, akin to using a hose to fill a leaky bucket with water. 

By the end of the 2021-22 school year, 10% of teachers left the profession nationally, 4% more than before the pandemic, according to . Experts point to job dissatisfaction, political polarization and exhaustion. 

In Florida, one of the nine states that saw a higher enrollment bump than most, more than 5,000 teaching positions are vacant, the . The job has gotten harder, too — remaining educators teach more students per classroom than they did before the pandemic. While the enrollment data suggest a move in the right direction, it will take years for today’s teachers in training to enter its workforce.

“We’ve really got to think more about the job of a teacher and how we make it more sustainable — financially, from the perspective of work-life balance, and giving people opportunities for growth,” King said. “We need to look at teaching and why it’s such a difficult job to sell.”

But being awakened in the middle of the night by sharp pains was new for Coreano and their family. Rats had begun to bite them in their sleep. Later that morning, they went to their Kensington school and pretended nothing happened.

Chronicling the life of Corem and two other Puerto Rican students from Philadelphia, author Nikhil Goyal presents harrowing accounts of childhood in his latest book . 

Readers see Corem, Ryan Rivera and Giancarlos Rodriguez grow up overpoliced and underfed. By the time they reached high school, the system threatened to close some 37 schools, and only after , shuttered 24. 

In some cases walking an hour one-way to school without transportation after an eviction left them displaced, Corem, Ryan and Giancarlos give low-income children a human face and serve as a cautionary tale. The Census Bureau has revealed the rate of childhood poverty has doubled, and the country will soon see pandemic-era relief for families, schools and come to an end. 

“If we believe that schools should be equitable and humane and child centered, then we’ve got to be willing to fight for an agenda that will end poverty,” said Goyal, who for the last two years served as the senior policy advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Budget Committees. 

Their stories illuminate exactly how economic instability and harsh discipline policies impact children’s ability to learn safely, making the case for change, particularly as educators nationwide grapple with how best to support students academically after pandemic disruptions.

Making economic stimuluses like the Child Tax Credit permanent, Goyal added, would mean “the lives of educators and school staff and counselors would be a lot easier.” 

Named one of 2023’s best books by the New Yorker, also illuminates how school policies governing students can disproportionately shape entire futures, particularly for students of color who are more often suspended and expelled than their peers. Zero tolerance discipline policies, for instance, put children like Ryan Rivera in juvenile incarceration and harsh schooling isolated from friends for years, after being pushed to light a trashcan on fire at 12 years old.

In conversation with The 74, Goyal reflects on school closures, community schooling, chronic absenteeism, and what policies stand to make a difference for the nearly living in poverty nationwide.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You frame childhood poverty as a crisis to be — why release this book now? What’s happening?

The Census Bureau released its — child poverty more than doubled. More than 5 million children are plunged into poverty. It was the single largest increase in poverty in recorded history, just an astonishing development in public policy that I think deserves enormous attention as well as a full-throated response from people in Washington and people in power.��

The increase in child poverty coincides with the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit, economic stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance, and a number of other programs that have enormously benefited children and families, whether in terms of food assistance, or housing assistance, or Medicaid access.��

We’re also at this moment where a lot of districts throughout the country are facing dropping enrollments, facing fiscal cliffs with the end of ESSER funds. People are anticipating a lot more consolidations, and possibly something like what happened in Philadelphia where a school system weighed closing dozens of schools. What are some lessons that school leaders might glean from what happened in Philadelphia? 

In 2013, the school district proposed closing some three dozen. The argument was that the district was bleeding in a major fiscal deficit. In the book I cite a major report by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by the district to evaluate the fiscal state of schools. One of the recommendations was a mass closure of schools. They also recommended a mass firing of teachers and other school staff and a very market-oriented approach to public education. The key recommendation was taken up by the school district, against the wishes of students and parents and educators and unions, who were an incredibly robust coalition.��

Pew Research and others have found that school closures haven’t actually yielded the balance of savings that the architects originally envisioned. They cause a lot of displacement, educational instability. And, and in many instances, students are not actually necessarily attending so-called “higher performing schools” after their schools shut down. 

I read about Fairhill School, this extraordinary school in the poorest neighborhood of Philadelphia, which had been serving generations upon generations of children of the working class. This was a school that had been deeply underfunded. And in spite of that, they were still able to provide children with a nurse, a safe environment. 

Their test scores weren’t as good as suburban districts, sure. But does that mean that we should necessarily be closing a school like that which has been an anchor of the community? I don’t think so. I think if we provide public schools with equitable resources, and the type of respect that they deserve, so many of the issues that folks might point you to in public education, I don’t think would exist. 

The charter movement has capitalized on this. But if you go back to the history of charter schools, and you go back to Minnesota and some of the earliest charter schools, these were laboratories of progressivism. We’re gonna bring innovation, bring the best, experiment with interesting ideas in pedagogy and curriculum and instruction and the teaching force. See what works and then bring the best ideas into the public system. That is the model that I would prefer, where charter schools work in tandem with public schools, not as competition.

Something I appreciated while reading is that you give these trends and the political events around them a human face, from the war on drugs and no tolerance policies for violence that led to thousands of incarcerated youth. What’s currently underway that you think might be on track to cause more devastation? Particularly for Black and brown children?

I think there’s a dramatic rise in the privatization movement. We’re seeing a dramatic increase in the voucher schemes as well as charter expansion. In Philadelphia alone, nearly 40% of children attend either charter schools or cyber charter schools. There’s cities all over this country where traditional public schools have become dismantled, and we’re seeing a rise of the private sector intervening in public education. There’s obviously some really amazing organizing and efforts by teachers unions and advocacy groups like Journey for Justice fighting back against those policies all over the country.

What’s at stake, if these models are to continue at the scale that they have? What would be the impact for students, based on your research and experience with Philadelphia?

If we continue down this path, where more and more charters replace traditional public schools, where voucher programs siphon even more dollars away from the public system into the private system, particularly the religious sector, then I think that’s one of the most grave and profound threats to American democracy. I think the foundations of American democracy are found in public education. I think it’s one of the areas of our society that has not been fully transformed and taken over by the market.

Look at health care, look at energy, look at housing. By and large, public education has withstood a number of those assaults over generations, but I think public schools are facing their most serious threats. The pandemic didn’t help. We can debate about school closures, the efficacy of that or not, but I think the reality is that they breed a distrust among parents who were rightfully frustrated about making sure that there was a place for their children to be during the day and be educated. 

One exception to this threat you’ve identified to the traditional public system is the expansion of 3K and pre-K programs in many cities. 

The early childhood education space is very fascinating to me. Public dollars might go to both public providers as well as private providers, and you’re seeing that there’s not a sustained level of federal dollars. A lot of those private providers cannot remain open because their margins are so low. 

There is a growing interest from states all over this country as well as cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they have poured an enormous amount of money into public pre-K. We’re talking about an area of great optimism. I am deeply encouraged by efforts by states and cities to expand early childhood education, because it is not only the right thing to do, it is good for our economy and society.

At one point in the book, you say their story is one of survival, where 18th birthdays are not rites of passage, but miracles. That it’s a story of social contract in tatters. In this reality, where so many children grow up in poverty, what are some best practices for school systems?

I think every school should be turned into a community school, where they have wraparound services, social and health supports. Universal free school meals, extended hours, restorative justice, well paid teachers and staff and modernized infrastructure. 

There are incredible examples of community schools all over this country. I will point to Cincinnati as the gold standard for community schooling, because they’ve converted virtually all of their public schools into Community Learning Centers. I am always struck by the fact that they have dentists and mental health professionals and other medical staff and doctors who are literally based in the school itself to provide care to students. 

We have to recognize that the issues and challenges that young people experience in their homes and in their communities don’t get left behind when they go to school every day. It affects their ability to learn. It affects their relationships with their teachers and counselors, and their relationships with their peers. 

We’ve got to really recognize that poverty and economic insecurity is the root cause of many of these educational inequalities. That schools can be places where children can get access to healthcare and all their social support. I’m very encouraged by that trend across the country. And the research shows that community schools have a positive impact on absenteeism, on truancy, on graduation rates, and student engagement. 

It’s the idea of, meet people where they’re at, provide them with the basic, basic building blocks for dignified life and you will see many of the social problems that once existed, either be reduced or eliminated.

were chronically absent by the end of the last school year, and we’re hearing more and more about school avoidance. What does Corem’s story reveal about this trend and its links with mental health, which is what some believe to be a root cause right now? 

It’s a great crisis. I would say that Corem has a harrowing, fascinating story with a lot of lessons. Today Corem uses they/them pronouns. When they were growing up, they lived with their mother who was disabled. They endured consistent housing and food insecurity. They would run out of food. They had to endure evictions. They moved in some years, twice or three times, which meant that they had to constantly switch schools and never really settle into one school. That meant Corem’s academic performance faltered.��

I know they’ve suffered from absenteeism at times, not due to their own failings, but simply because they were deprived of the basic necessities of a decent life. They didn’t have the tools and resources that would allow him to get to school on time every day. There’s one moment in the book where the landlord tells their mother that sorry, we just sold the house and you have to leave immediately. 

That means, in the middle of the school year, they have to walk more than an hour from the new home to the old school. Their mother was able to get them a public transit pass, but it just goes to show homelessness and housing insecurity are huge obstacles to consistent and regular school attendance. 

There’s a lot of research to show that homeless students in particular make up a significant part of the population that is going to be absent. As emergency rental assistance winds down and now we’re more than two years since the end of the national eviction moratorium, our families are really suffering through the housing affordability crisis. And I think we see that play out with children.

For William Gao, his research is personal. Three of his grandparents, who lived in rural China with sparse access to health care, were diagnosed with cancer. 

“Poor health care meant late diagnoses,” Gao said. “And late diagnoses meant grim prognoses.”

During his research, 18-year-old Gao noticed that shortages in pathologists around the world cause long diagnosis times, especially in developing countries. He said this elevates mortality rates in breast cancer patients, for example.

To tackle these health care disparities, the teen from Centennial High School in Ellicott City, Maryland, developed an AI diagnostic tool to support doctors and hospitals in the diagnosis process. Rather than sending tissue samples to a separate lab, with long wait times for results, Gao’s app creates a heat map, then and there, of a biopsied tissue revealing exactly what part of the tissue sample could be malignant.

Knowing where to look in a tissue sample could vastly speed up the diagnostic process, Gao said. And, not only that — the app ameliorates the risks associated with patient privacy, since it eliminates the process of transferring patient data between institutions.

Gao said that this is a noteworthy step towards offering more equitable health care outcomes, and he sees room to collaborate with the venture and entrepreneur space to scale the app. 

“I hope it can be applied in rural areas which can create a real impact and really have an ability to support patients around the world,” he said.

Gavriela Beatrice Kalish-Schur knew from an early age that STEM was for her. But it was in high school that she knew she wanted to specialize in neuroscience, “I think because we know so little about the brain,” she said.

She also knew that anxiety impacts many young people, and that current therapies aren’t as effective as they could be, or they’re very expensive — or both.

The 18-year-old senior at Julia R. Masterman High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said she was interested in understanding what’s happening on a cellular level with anxiety to help inform the development of more effective treatments.

Her experiment: Make fruit flies anxious. She targeted a certain brain pathway called IRE1, knocking it down in the flies. “Knocking down is like turning down the volume when you’re listening to music,” she explained. 

Then she observed their behavior. And like the proverbial wallflower at a school dance, the fruit flies clung to the wall of the petri dish, rather than spread over the surface as they normally would. In other words, the flies exhibited anxious behavior.

Kalish-Schur discovered that these flies had different protein levels than the control group. Understanding the relationship between the IRE1 pathway and anxiety, she said, can lead to more targeted treatments for anxiety in humans. 

”We can use what we already know and new techniques to develop cures for diseases that harm a lot of people,” Kalish-Schur said.

Advocates who fought for and won a historic court ruling declaring Pennsylvania’s education funding system unconstitutional said Thursday that they’re ready to go back to court if state lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro fail to make a significant down payment on a solution.

The Pennsylvania Schools Work campaign, a coalition that advocates  for adequate and equitable school funding, said it has asked Shapiro to allocate $2 billion to allow the state’s 412 inadequately funded school districts to begin improvements to instruction and student services.

That initial investment must be followed by an additional $1 billion each year for four years until the gap between what the school districts receive from the state now and the amount required for a constitutionally adequate education is eliminated, representatives of the coalition said.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

The unveiling of the proposal came a week before the Basic Education Funding Commission’s deadline for a report on inequity in Pennsylvania public schools, following three months of hearings last year.

Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center, said members of the commission, which includes members of each legislative caucus and the administration, are at a critical juncture where they can advance a transparent and evidence-based plan for a new funding system.

If they choose not to respond to the Commonwealth Court’s order from nearly a year ago, “it will take state officials right back to the court that has already ruled that the system is fundamentally broken,” Klehr said.

“As the attorneys for the school districts, families and organizations that brought this case we are prepared to go back to court to uphold the rights of those communities,” Klehr said. “We cannot accept a plan that is politically convenient but fails our students.”

In a Feb. 7, 2023, that capped a decade of litigation, Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer found that the state’s reliance on local property taxes to fund education means students in poorer communities have fewer opportunities in school. That is at odds with the state Constitution’s requirement for the Legislature to pay for a “thorough and efficient system of public education,” Jubelirer said.

Testimony in hearings before the Basic Education Funding Commission largely tracked that in the before Jubelirer in 2022. In cities and townships across the state, members heard from educators, advocates, students and an economist who laid bare the depth and breadth of the crisis.

Matthew Kelly, a Penn State professor who analyzed the state’s school funding system, testified that the shortfall is about $6.2 billion or about 20% of what the state currently spends each year.

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, said that number was determined by examining the schools that are succeeding as measured by the state’s own goals and targets and what they are actually spending.

“From there, you can have a baseline number for what every school district in the commonwealth should have if they want to have the same success, and that number is $6.2 billion,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, noted that 2024 will be a politically volatile year with elections for the president and Pennsylvania lawmakers. Those bargaining Pennsylvania’s budget this year will face an additional challenge as pandemic-era federal aid that has been used to supplement education funding expires.

Shapiro acknowledged the challenge he will face in striking a compromise in spending, Cooper noted.

“I’m very mindful of the Commonwealth Court decision and that we need to have more equity in our system. I’m also very mindful that someone has to pay for that,” Shapiro told The Associated Press in a recent .

Cooper cited by the Pennsylvania Policy Center that shows voters are aware of the education funding disparity and support increasing spending to correct it. Among 1,274 likely voters, 69% said they believe that public schools require more money. And about two-thirds said they believe the state should do more to ensure schools are sufficiently and equitably funded, the polling shows.

“So this is not just something esoteric that happened in the state courts. ����’s the actual experience that Pennsylvania voters have,” Cooper said. She noted that while the economic impact is more pronounced in urban districts, a majority of those surveyed shared the opinion that schools need better funding whether they were in urban, suburban or rural areas and regardless of whether they live in a Republican or Democratic legislative district.

“Voters are very aware of what’s going on at a pretty high level,” Cooper said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Nearly six months after the 2023-24 fiscal year began, the Legislature passed education funding code bills on Wednesday. The passage of and  allocates millions in state dollars to various education-related initiatives.

The previously stalled HB 301 allocates more than $300 million to libraries and community colleges, to school mental health services and $175 million to school facility repairs.

Of the $175 million budgeted for school facility repairs, such as mold and asbestos abatement, $100 million comes from funding previously earmarked for the , which prioritizes the state’s 100 poorest school districts.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

State Rep. Peter Schweyer (D-Lehigh) said that the change was offered as a compromise by lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled House to the GOP-led Senate who would not support the measure.

“Given what we’ve seen from the Senate, they weren’t going to accept it [Level Up] so we compromised on more money for facilities,” Schweyer told the Capital-Star.

The bill also allocates $150 million to the and , which provide tax breaks to businesses contributing monetary donations to scholarships and other educational funds across the Commonwealth.

The programs have faced criticism from Democrats and public school advocates, who say the programs are discriminatory and favor private schools, but House Republicans celebrated the funding in a statement Wednesday evening.

“Thanks to the hard work of Pennsylvania Republicans, we can ensure the continuation of programs that prevent children from failing alongside Pennsylvania’s failing education system,” Joshua Kail (R-Beaver) said.

Republican leaders said that delays in passing the school code and fiscal code, which are usually passed concurrently with the main part of the budget, the general appropriations bill, have deprived community colleges, libraries and 911 centers of funding since , when .

“I think what we’ve seen is a consistent failure of leadership on behalf of the House Democrats in terms of actually completing the budget on time,” Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) said. “You saw the spectacle that was just on the floor regarding what they did want to spend time on, which is really unfortunate,” Cutler said, referencing a debate on a resolution honoring singer Taylor Swift. “����’s been a lot of wasted time and opportunities.”

More than a month after the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an unfinished $45.5 billion budget while negotiations continued.

The bills now head to Shapiro’s desk for final approval.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Virginia Democrats were primarily celebrating being able to now block the governor’s plan in the state, but the outcome of Tuesday’s races — both at the state and local school board level — raise questions about the political viability of other Youngkin mandates, such as adopting state policies seen as hostile to LGBTQ+ students and giving parents far greater control over classroom materials. 

These volatile issues have roiled national politics for the last several years and were at play in school board and statewide elections in multiple places Tuesday. But voters , as seen in Democratic and progressive-leaning teachers unions quickly heralding the results and foes of Moms for Liberty, a high-profile, hard-right parent group whose candidates did not fare well, . 

“Voters across the country rejected extremist politicians and school board candidates running on divisive “culture war” issues in yesterday’s elections, as mainstream parents rallied instead behind those championing investments in safe and welcoming public schools that kids need to recover and thrive,” the American Federation of Teachers said Wednesday.

Citing its own analysis of 250 races nationally, the union said AFT-supported candidates won in over 80% of them and that “extremist school board candidates” were defeated in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Wichita, Kansas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Aldine, Texas; and throughout Ohio and Minnesota.

On the other side of the aisle, the conservative Center for Education Reform was hoping for an opportunity to extend school choice funding measures that did not materialize: “If [Youngkin’s] party wins the votes necessary to take the majority in both chambers, there is potential for this state to provide parents with Education Savings Accounts.”

Here are five places where the school culture wars were pivotal in the 2023 elections:

Pennsylvania: Two school board contests in particular, in Pembridge and Central Bucks in suburban Philadelphia, were being watched nationally as a showdown between Republican incumbents, who had adopted a range of anti-LGBTQ+ and ultra-conservative curriculum measures, and Democratic challengers who pledged to change course. The contests also drew outsized political contributions, most notably in Central Bucks where Democrats and Republicans . The of the Central Bucks races and appeared to go to candidates opposed to the Moms for Liberty-aligned incumbents.

Virginia: In Spotsylvania County, where a conservative board was among the first to implement Youngkin’s education platforms, all four GOP-endorsed candidates lost to more liberal opponents. One who went on to defeat, Kirk Twigg, suggested that books pulled by the board from school libraries should be burned. He lost by almost 25 points, . In Loudoun County, which became ground zero for a host of culture war issues, particularly during Virginia’s prolonged school closures, all nine board members will be new in this upcoming term. “It was chaos for the last four years and I’m glad the election is finally over, and we can get to work,” said Deana Griffiths, .

Ohio: The state, where former President Trump won 53% of the vote in 2020, became a leading story out of the 2023 elections when voters and reproductive health care in the state constitution. ����’s difficult to say how those voters may have gone down ballot in their local school board races, but in central Ohio, either supported or aligned with Moms for Liberty or the right-leaning 1776 Project won their races. In the Lakota and Forest Hills districts outside Cincinnati, including painting over a mural celebrating different races, carried the day.

Minnesota: Five of the largest suburbs of �Ѿ��ԲԱ���dzٲ�’s Twin Cities this year saw an unprecedented wave of spending by two political action committees backing candidates running on parental rights agendas. As of last week, the Minnesota Parents Alliance and a local affiliate spent a combined $80,000 — the lion’s share donated by one person — on 44 school board candidates. Just nine of their candidates clinched their election, according to unofficial results. Three races were as of Wednesday afternoon. Two of the PAC-supported candidates won board seats in the state’s largest school system, the Anoka-Hennepin School District, which has a long history of local elections centering on culture war issues. In the southern city of Hastings, where in the 2021 election cycle activists outed the now-former school board chair’s 8-year-old child as transgender, three Minnesota Parents Alliance candidates captured seats on a seven-member board. 

New Jersey: Parental rights and gender issues have taken center stage at school board meetings, with the results from Tuesday’s election being mixed on whose agenda resonated more with voters. In Morris County, where school boards have fought over parental notification and LGBTQ+-themed reading materials, conservative candidates did well. In Sussex and Bergen County, however, incumbents lost seats after blocking pride signs on school grounds, seeking to remove books from the library or altering policies on transgender students, .

The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday voted to advance legislation that purports to give parents more insight and control over what their children are reading in school. But opponents vigorously argued the measures are a de facto book ban, and a redundant effort to exclude content by and for marginalized communities.

Senate Bill 7 passed 29-21, with state Sen. Lisa Boscola, (D-Northampton), voting with the Republican majority. It would require schools to identify sexually explicit content in school curriculum, materials, and books, create an opt-in policy to notify parents of the sexually explicit content by including a list of the book titles on a form, allow parents to review the materials, and require parents to give direct consent for their children to be provided or have access to sexually explicit content. It was by the Senate Education Committee last week.

The bill’s prime sponsor Sen. Ryan Aument, (R-Lancaster), has been working on similar legislation since 2021, and has insisted that SB 7 is not a book ban, an argument he reiterated on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“We are not seeking to ban books and we are not seeking to censor any group,” Aument said. “We are simply seeking to empower parents to make decisions about their own child, not anyone else’s. One must only look at local school board races and local school board meetings all across this Commonwealth to see that this is an issue that concerns many parents.”

Aument said he had taken a “measured approach” to crafting the legislation. “We listened to families. We listened to school administrators, teachers and librarians. And we worked hard to draft a proposal to make sure all sides could feel heard and respected,” he said, adding that what resulted was a proposal that closely resembles legislation recently passed in Virginia.

State Sen. Amanda Capelletti, (D-Delaware), said SB 7 is a book ban. She called it part of a “stunning and increasing trend of censoring books in schools and libraries,” and “a direct attack on the right to read and our freedom of speech.”

Capelletti said the “extreme vocal minority” pushing book bans was missing a “glaring” reality.

“We all like to believe that every child grows up in a family that loves and values them for exactly who they are. We know that unfortunately, is not true,” she said, adding many kids are left needing a support system and information outside their families, which they can often find in books.

“The kids who need books that explore gender identity and sexual orientation, are the most likely ones whose parents are denying them and their communities the right to learn from these books,” she added. “Exploring human relationships, sex and love are some of the most challenging and rewarding obstacles that we will face in life. And we need the right education and materials available to ensure people can explore those spaces safely and with the right knowledge to be able to interact with the world around them compassionately.”

Sen. Nikil Saval, (D-Philadelphia), said the bill was not specific enough in its definition of what was “explicit,” and cautioned that its present language could exclude works of literature like Milton’s Paradise Lost, St. Augustine’s Confessions, or The Song of Solomon, all of which contain explicit references to sexuality. He noted that Paradise Lost was one of 150 books recently of an Orlando, Fla. school district.

“The experience of many states that have adopted similar ordinances shows these invidious distinctions are not so easily drawn, haplessly and clumsily though the bill tries,” Saval said. “Let us be sober and clear about what this bill, if passed, would do. The standards of liberal education for which our founders fought would be decimated. SB 7 would destroy the educational system it purports to uphold.”

Boscola, who broke with Democrats to vote in favor of SB 7, said she had worked with Aument on a previous version of the legislation she voted against, and thought the latest version was a marked improvement.

“Senate Bill 7 strikes the needed balance between parental control over their child’s exposure to sexually explicit content,” Boscola said. School boards, she added, are in an impossible position of having to make decisions about books, holding meetings where parents show up to protest that grow heated.

“There are some groups that want to ban all books that have even the slightest reference to sexually explicit content. And groups on the other side that see all sexually explicit content as being OK,” she said. “This General Assembly needs to lead. It needs to set forth a statewide policy that balances those radically different viewpoints of parents on both sides of this issue. We cannot leave this up to 500 different school boards.”

Sharon Ward, senior policy advisor at the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, said the state already has strong protections in place, and SB 7 will only further encourage book-banning activities at the school district level.

“The bill will divert educators from their work with students, requiring them to search through thousands of volumes to find a single word or phrase that could offend a parent, regardless of the merit or popularity of the book, ignoring two decades of court decisions that have rejected this form of book banning,” Ward wrote in an email to the Capital-Star.

Senate Bill 340, sponsored by state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin), requires school districts to post on their website a link or title for every textbook used by its schools, a course syllabus, and the state academic standards for each course.

Several Democrats objected to SB 340 on the grounds that it is redundant. Sen. Art Haywood, (D-Philadelphia), cited several school districts’ policies that already allow parents to review reading materials. “School districts already provide for significant parent, guardian or student input on the materials that are in the library and in the curriculum,” Haywood said.

Similar curriculum-focused legislation was approved by the Senate and the House in 2021 but was .

Sen. Jay Costa, (D-Allegheny), called SB 340 “an example of a solution in search of a problem with political motives behind it,” adding it would only serve to add more mandates to already overburdened school districts.

Mastriano said there was “nothing nefarious or political” behind the legislation. “This is definitely something we need to do to build trust with parents,” he said.

SB 340 passed along party lines, 28-22.

Growing national rise in book bans

Over the past several years, there has been an and censorship spurred by parents and right-wing groups. started during the early days of the pandemic in 2020, part of the frustration over mask mandates and online learning that eventually led to the politicization of school board meetings.

The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee held a hearing last week about whether some books containing LGBTQ+ content should be removed from public school libraries. Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, said during th hearing that the organization has been doing research on book bans “on and off for about 100 years as these issues have flared up.”

He said three or four years ago “there was nothing like this on the scene. Something changed. A movement to encourage people to try to censor information and ideas.”

Between Jan 1. and Aug. 1, across public, school, and academic libraries in the U.S. there were 695 attempts to censor library materials and 1,915 challenges to specific titles, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

That reflects a 20% increase from 2022, which held the previous record for book challenges since ALA started compiling the data more than two decades ago. According to the ALA, the “vast majority” of challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

“The Pennsylvania Senate approved two bills today that unnecessarily impede student learning and create a burdensome mandate on educators and school librarians,” Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) president Aaron Chapin said in a statement Tuesday. “These bills are completely unnecessary mandates on educators and school librarians who are overworked and underpaid.”

PSEA, an affiliate of the National Education Association, represents about 177,000 active and retired educators and school employees, student teachers, higher education staff, and health care workers statewide.

Chapin, who is also a middle school teacher in the Stroudsburg Area School District, added that such legislation would further serve to deter teachers from coming to work in the Keystone State.

“We need to stop accusing hardworking educators of indoctrinating kids,” he said. “If you want yet another example of why Pennsylvania continues to see educator shortages, here is Exhibit A. We don’t need overreaching state legislation for issues that are worked out at the local level on a daily basis.”

Both bills now head to the Democratic-majority House.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

In 2020, Egypt Luckey graduated from Building 21, a high school in Northwest Philadelphia affiliated with the Learning Innovative network, which emphasizes real-world learning experiences. For the entirety of her high school career, Luckey never had a public school library available to her, and she thinks it put her at a disadvantage during the transition to college.

“I never had a library in school where I could actually go, sit, and enjoy reading because I am a bookworm. I love reading, writing, anything that has a creative expression,” Luckey said. “Not having that experience kind of set me back a little bit because I had these situations where I needed help but didn’t know what to do in those moments.”

A 2022 study by found that first-year college students who had prior high school research experience, especially those from schools with certified librarians, felt more confident in their academic research skills and performed better in using research tools and strategies, such as information and digital literacy, and the difference between a primary and secondary source of information.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“Our students need to develop the skills to learn on their own. [They need] the thinking skills to be able to discern information that they can believe, in order to become digital citizens,” Barbara Stripling, cofounder of the Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Libraries (PARSL) said. “They need to be taught these skills, they need opportunities to practice them, and it needs to become who they are. They need to understand the importance of looking at multiple perspectives.”

PARSL is a nonprofit organization staffed by retired educators and librarians. It operates without external funding, relying solely on volunteers. The organization wants to improve public school libraries in Philadelphia, aiming to improve academic performance. PARSL produced a white paper earlier in 2023 addressing the link between students’ reading abilities and the shortage of librarians, proposing solutions that involve collaboration with the school district and City Council to secure additional funding.

In the School District of Philadelphia, the number of school librarians has declined over the past decade, from about 57 in the 2012-2013 school year to just one in the .

Marissa Orbanek, communications officer for the Philadelphia School District said that the district does not have enough funds for all the positions that are ultimately needed and desired.

“We will continue to advocate for adequate and equitable funding for education so that historically underfunded districts, like Philadelphia, have the resources necessary to provide all students with access to the 21st-century learning environments, including libraries and Instructional Media Centers,” Orbanek said.

Inside a Philadelphia classroom

Eric Hitchner, a halftime English teacher and English as a Second Language (ESL) coordinator for grades 9-12 at Building 21 in Philadelphia, has created a do-it-yourself library in his classroom. Some extra books he forgot he had in his car proved a treasure trove for his students, he said.

“It was like this light bulb moment,” Hitchner said. “There’s a dynamic that when we’re in the middle of a lesson, you’re not going to go to the back and borrow a book, we need that actual dedicated space. So we started creating one, we don’t have a librarian, [and] we don’t have a budget. We don’t have books, those are all things I had to kind of scrounge.”

Hitchner has since found donors, visited garage sales, and thrift shops to find books to stock his DIY library. He added he couldn’t have done it without the help of students like Egypt Luckey.

“Egypt is one of the amazing students I taught for English and creative writing who volunteered to be a library intern and get the library started all those years ago,” he said. With COVID interrupting her high school career, Luckey wasn’t able to complete the work, he said. “But we would have never gotten that far without her help.”

Luckey said she did it because she wanted to be a part of something bigger than just Building 21.

“We had so many ideas and things we wanted to do, execute, and just talking about the lack of libraries in a lot of the public high schools and public schools in general, just excites me,” Luckey said. She’s hopeful that her efforts might inspire others to do the same at other schools.

Other districts around the nation have rebuilt and restored their public school library programs, Former Superintendent of Boston Public Schools (BPS), Dr. Brenda Cassellius worked in the district for three years to restore its libraries. School librarians do much more than just help children check out books, she noted; they’re media technology specialists, and provide social service support for families who may not have internet at home.

“The library is the hub of learning in a school environment, and certified librarians know how to curate that learning experience and also offer their expertise to curriculum development, materials, and resourcing to teachers,” Cassellius told the Capital-Star. “They’re just an absolute glue to the learning experience that children have.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an last month to create a AI governing board for Pennsylvania that will guide the commonwealth’s use of generative artificial intelligence, including developing training programs for state employees.

“We don’t want to let AI happen to us,” Shapiro said. “We want to be part of helping develop AI for the betterment of our citizens.”

The Sept. 20 order establishes a set of “core values” including privacy, safety, fairness, accuracy, and employee empowerment. It will be made up of “senior administration officials and experts in the field,” and begin meeting next week, the governor said.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Shapiro signed the order at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which will work with the AI governing board to guide the state’s use of the technology.

“Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming nearly every sector of our economy,” CMU President Farnam Jahanian said at the event. “I’m grateful to have a leader in Harrisburg that recognizes the potential and the urgency of this moment.”

Shapiro and other state officials at the announcement stressed that the state’s use of AI won’t replace human workers.

“If we take the course that other states and countries have taken to completely ban AI for government purposes. we’re going to seriously lose out on the opportunity presented to us to improve government services for Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said. “At the same time, know that AI will never replace the ingenuity, the creativity, and the lived experience of our outstanding workforce in the commonwealth. A tool, no matter how sophisticated, accomplishes nothing without a hand to wield it.”

As part of the executive order, the Shapiro administration will create a two-year fellowship program for post-bachelor, masters’ and doctoral candidates who will work on AI issues with state agencies.

Shapiro said Pennsylvania public safety agencies are working with AI experts to address the threats AI poses, and his administration is “taking a multi-agency approach” in protecting Pennsylvania consumers from potential AI security threats, such as fraud.

“This executive order is the product of months of careful consideration and planning around AI with a belief that we need to embrace AI, not fear it, but we need to deploy it responsibly,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s signature on Pennsylvania’s $45.5 billion budget brought relief Thursday across the commonwealth as the new school year approaches and quarterly payments come due.

But his administration’s decision to hold back hundreds of millions in funds for a handful of programs leaves uncertainty for some as school districts work to reconcile their budgets with the money they expect to receive from the state.

Shapiro touted the budget, which was delivered to his desk by the General Assembly 34 days after the June 30 deadline, as a commonsense spending plan that accomplishes many of the goals laid out in his campaign and budget address.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Budget Secretary Uri Monson informed legislative leaders in a memo this week that he would not release money for seven programs including more than $200 million for public education because the General Assembly has not passed fiscal code bills to authorize the spending.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, nonetheless late on Wednesday called the chamber back to session on Thursday so that Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, acting as Senate president, could sign the general appropriations bill, the final administrative step before sending it to Shapiro’s desk.

Although Democratic leaders said they disagreed that some of the programs require authorizing legislation, they said negotiations on the fiscal code language is ongoing. House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, said the House would reconvene when talks are finalized.

The frozen money, totaling $338 million, includes $7.5 million to pay for public defenders for the first time, nearly $21 million to increase ambulance reimbursement rates, $50 million in relief for struggling hospitals, $50 million for grants to help low-income homeowners with maintenance, and $10 million for stipends to attract students to the teaching profession.

The programs for which funding is frozen include $100 million for Level Up supplementary payments to the state’s 100 poorest school districts and $100 million for school mental health grants.

Pennsylvania School Boards Association Senior Director of Government Affairs Andrew Christ said school districts have 30 days after the state budget is finalized to reopen and reconcile their budgets with the funding they expect to receive from the state.

But with significant sums in state subsidies in limbo, some districts that have received Level Up payments in the past could be uncertain about what they will receive.

While Christ said it is safe to assume that the Education Department will use the same formula this year as it has used in the past, districts that are on the cusp of eligibility may not have a full picture of their financial situation until the money is released.

A delay in releasing the mental health grant money could also force school districts to move money from other areas in order to pay contracted providers, he said.

“It does leave some question marks for some schools and their programs,” Christ said.

Human services make up the largest share of the state budget, and county human services agencies and providers are often the most seriously affected by budget delays.

Richard Edley of the Rehabilitation and Community Providers Association said the end of the impasse is a good thing because the strain on county human services would have been great and may have impacted Medicaid payments and federal matching funds if it had continued.

However, Edley said, the budget was disappointing for human services providers, who spoke out during budget negotiations about a $170 million cut in funding for intellectual and developmental disability care providers.

Advocates said money to pay the wages of direct support providers who care for individuals with severe autism and other disabilities was cut due to a drop in spending. But the drop in spending was a result of a workforce shortage driven by insufficient wages that has left thousands of people on a waiting list.

“The financial losses of providers are mounting. The administration and legislature believe providers will somehow ‘figure it out.’  Eventually they will not be able to,” Edley said.

Edley said he is hopeful that as lawmakers return to the negotiating table to work out the authorizing language for the frozen programs, they restore $100 million that had been earmarked to address mental health needs identified by the legislature’s Behavioral Health Commission.

That money, received as part of the state’s American Rescue Plan aid during the pandemic, was redirected in the Senate’s version of the budget to the school mental health program.

The House passed legislation in June with a bipartisan 173-30 vote to direct the aid money into three streams to train and retain behavioral health professionals, provide criminal justice agencies with mental health resources and award grants to county mental health agencies and providers.

State Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh, and Sen. Maria Collett, D-Montgomery, held a rally at the Capitol last month on restoring the funding. Schlossberg said the Senate budget amendment redirecting the pandemic aid to school grants was improper and gave the appearance that it was an either-or proposition.

In past budgets, the fiscal code has included supplementary appropriations and it is still possible to restore the funding approved in the House.

“The money is absolutely still there to make that happen,” Schlossberg said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

A new report by Penn State’s Center for Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis shows that nearly 15.4% of principals left Pennsylvania schools between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The 4.2% increase is the highest since accurate employment records have been kept.

Out of the 463 educators who left the principalship in 2022-2023, 250 educators became employed in another position with the Pennsylvania public education system.

Nearly one-third of educators found employment in managerial and leadership positions and more than 21% entered district administration. Another 18% left the principalship for an assistant principal position and more than 15% returned to teaching.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“The pandemic played a huge role in principal turnover in Pennsylvania,” said Ed Fuller, education professor at Penn State University and author of the report.

“Principals had to flip overnight from in-person to virtual learning and many of them didn’t have the knowledge and skills to do that,” he said. “They worked long hours while also leading the school, staff, students and their families. It was a lot for one person to take on all at once.

“Also, many of the folks who quit the principalship moved into central office positions,” he added. “The pay is better for a lot of these positions and the pressure is lower.”

In the report, Pennsylvania schools with more than 93.7% students of color had an average principal attrition rate of 23.1%. Schools with less than 5% of students of color had an average principal attrition rate of 11.8%.

The principal turnover rate was also high in the Commonwealth’s poorest school systems at 14.2% compared to 12.7% for principals in the wealthiest districts.

Nearly 32.8% of charter school principals left the principalship in 2022-2023 compared to 13.2% of traditional district school principals.

High school principals were the most likely to leave with a 16.9% attrition rate, followed by middle school principals at 13.8% and elementary school principals at 12.5%.

Black female principals had the greatest attrition rate in Pennsylvania at 19%, meaning nearly one out of every five Black female principals left the principalship from 2022 to 2023.

Black males had the second highest attrition rate at 17.4% followed by Hispanic females at 16.7%. The lowest attrition rate was for Hispanic males at 12%, according to the report.

“Most principals do not last at the same school for more than four years,” Fuller said. “For a lot of high schools, when students come in as a freshman, they’ll have a different principal when they graduate in four years.

“For most kids coming into kindergarten, they’ll have a different elementary principal when they finish elementary school,” he said. “It has a negative effect on teachers and students because there is no continuity in schools.

“Research has also shown that Black students in Pennsylvania schools succeed when they also have Black principals and teachers who stay longer,” he added.

Among the suggestions Fuller offered to address principal attrition includes: an increase in principal salaries, provide stipends for principals at hard-to-staff schools and adopt and implement a statewide principal working condition survey.

“One thing that will help with principal attrition is an increase in pay, but it also depends on how much they like their job and the working conditions of their job,” Fuller said. “Support from the superintendent and the central office will also increase longevity.

“If they’re providing principals with support, mentoring and helping them make decisions they will stay longer,” he said. “Nobody can no longer work over 60 to 80 hours a week for multiple years in a row.

“����’s just not sustainable, so providing more help to principals is also important,” he added. “Does a school have assistant principals and teacher leaders who can help the principals at the schools? Offering more pay and providing more support to principals can definitely help address principal attrition in the long run.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Thousands of students in Pennsylvania have reached out for help to address their mental health during the 2022-2023 school year, according to a new report.

But Kellam began to change his mind after a local nonprofit presented a new opportunity during a career class last fall: , a new, three-year career and technical education program that not only was free, but paid students for their work.

Though he couldn’t both do Launchpad and earn a bachelor’s degree, the more Kellam learned about the program, the more he thought about changing his path.

“After learning that Launchpad was not compatible with a four-year college, I dropped” my plan, Kellam said. “I wanted to do Launchpad more than I wanted to do college because of the opportunities it gives me to get a better job.”

Kellam is one of 45 students who were selected last fall among an inaugural group of 90 applicants. Launchpad’s program is presented in four stages. 

In the first, which began in January and lasts through the semester, students attend weekly afterschool meetings to participate in a variety of workshops and activities. Offerings include learning about infotechnology and building a computer; going on private tours with local companies; and creating presentations to teach younger students about the tech industry.

In the second, students take half-days during senior year and the summer after graduation to complete online classes through Arizona State University. They also receive coaching from Launchpad staff and build relationships with local industry experts through networking and observing different companies. 

The third stage is an intensive bootcamp at Launchpad’s Philadelphia office after graduation. Participants will work at least 30 hours a week to learn technical skills, develop a portfolio of completed projects and earn more college credits. In the fourth stage, they transition into a guaranteed paid career with an industry partner, working with real clients. The goal is to place participants in jobs that pay at least $50,000 a year.

Dannyelle Austin, executive director of Launchpad, created the program’s framework in 2022. She said it’s crucial for students to start workforce development and career education early on. “So often, workforce programming waits until young people are disconnected from school and work to try to engage them, as opposed to saying, ‘We know there are young people that are not going to go to college — how do we tap into them when they’re still in high school, when they’re still connected and engaged?’” Austin said.

Launchpad’s mission is to show students that career success doesn’t require a college degree, she said. 

from the U.S. Department of Education found that by eight years after their expected graduation date, students who focused on career and technical education while in high school had higher median annual earnings than those who did not.

Launchpad was created by , a Philadelphia-based nonprofit founded in 2013 to help traditional schools transition to a competency-based approach, which values student performance levels instead of grade-point averages. The nonprofit uses the framework in two of its own high schools — Building 21 Philadelphia, which Kellam attends, and another in Allentown, roughly one hour to the north. It also coaches educators and schools around the U.S. to transform their curriculum to be competency-based. 

Austin said she hopes Launchpad can branch out to include more industries, but it’s starting with tech because of the variety of opportunities available.

“There’s such a need for tech — and coders, web developers in our [Philadelphia] community particularly —  and we also know there’s not a lot of Black and brown folks in tech,” Austin said. “We have to think about equity and really help our young people see themselves in this field.”

The students will be compensated through Launchpad, eventually earning up to $5,000 for their work and time by the end of the program. Austin said the program is funded by donations and grants.

The initial 45 students come from 10 public and charter schools around Philadelphia that have partnered with Launchpad. One, Belmont Charter High School, has three students participating. Malaun Yuille, Belmont’s director of college and career services, said Launchpad is a great fit for students who are already taking technology classes but might not want to go to college.

“Since our school does not currently have a career-technical education program, we look for different organizations and businesses within our community to provide our students with opportunities to gain job-readiness skills,” Yuille said. “I like that Launchpad provides them with different opportunities to gain skills as well as being able to find employment.”

She said students have told her they are enjoying the program so far and appreciate the hands-on experience.

Manora McCoy, a student at Mastbaum High School in Philadelphia, said her favorite part has been the project they’re working on right now: creating an interactive presentation that highlights local job opportunities in tech. McCoy wants a career in health infotechnology.

“My mom is very proud of me for getting into a tech career, because nobody in our family is really interested in that,” she said. “This program is amazing.”

Chip Linehan, Building21 co-founder,  said Launchpad’s first group of students have been “phenomenal, with amazing energy.” They have been ready to learn and are looking forward to the next three years of the program, he said.

“We are working really hard to connect these young people to the futures that they deserve,” he said. “It is so apparent that for these kids, the sky’s the limit.”

Mirroring national trends, Pennsylvania is facing a social worker shortage that, if left unaddressed, could keep people from getting the support and care that they need.

To help close that gap, officials at the  say they want to offer $10 million in direct financial aid to social services students — including aspiring social workers.

That money would provide an average savings of about $1,500 a year for each student, the agency said in an April 10 statement. Pell-eligible (high-need) students could receive about $5,000, for an average total of $6,500 per year, according to the state system.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“Social services workers relieve suffering and improve the lives of children, seniors and many other Pennsylvanians,” PASSHE said in its statement. “There’s already a shortage of these workers, and communities will need even more of them to support the state’s aging population and address the impacts of the opioid epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic, the rise in social isolation, and the increase in mental health challenges for students.”

The agency, which has oversight of 10 state-owned universities, has asked the General Assembly to approve a $573.5 million funding request for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

That’s a 3.8% inflationary request, more than 2% increase included in Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, the .

State System officials also are asking lawmakers to authorize an additional $112 million for student aid that would be used to lower the cost of attending a state-owned university, and bolster the system’s ability to produce graduates in high-demand career fields such as nursing, teaching and computer science, the Capital-Star’s Peter Hall reported.

While it’s still possible to find social workers in hospitals and public clinics nationwide, one  that there is a “serious” gap between supply and demand — one that is expected to only worsen in the coming years.

“Our human resources are at the level of a crisis now,” Ron Manderscheid, the executive director of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors, , an industry trade publication. “About 85% of counties have inadequate or no behavioral health services, and 63% of counties have no psychiatrist.”

A number of factors, including the nation’s aging population, homelessness and incarceration, and the ongoing strain of the opioid epidemic, are helping to drive that demand, , an industry website.

Across the border in Maryland, officials in Anne Arundel County also are contending with a social worker shortage, .

As of mid-March, the county had at least 23 open positions, from entry-level to supervisor roles, the station reported, and was moving as swiftly as it could to try to fill them.

“What we believe is going on is that there is a shortage of people applying at the colleges for the degree programs,” Nicole Fogg, a county social work supervisor, told the station. “We are going to colleges and universities, forming partnerships with them and attending the job fairs. So, we are right there on location trying to entice students to join the profession.”

During an appearance before the House Appropriations Committee last month, state System Chancellor Daniel Greenstein told lawmakers that Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities offer the most cost-effective option for Pennsylvania residents to earn a degree. Over the course of a career, PASSHE graduates see a nearly $1 million increase in earnings, Greenstein said.

“We are an engine of social mobility,” Greenstein said. “We’re not only fueling the workforce, we’re creating ladders of opportunity that people are climbing up and doing really well on and it makes me proud and actually a little bit emotional to be able to say that.”

In its April 10 statement, the state System asserted that its plan for social services workers would allow more people to begin their education in a high-demand field.

“Affordability is especially important for rural and urban students. Increasing financial aid also lowers student debt, another incentive to enter a career field that traditionally has a lower starting wage,” the agency said in its statement.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

That’s what Shenandoah Valley School District Superintendent Brian Waite says he needs to properly serve his students. His school system is in one of Pennsylvania’s poorest regions with 80% of Shenandoah Valley’s roughly 1,200 students economically disadvantaged. 

Waite was glad Gov. Josh Shapiro acknowledged the longstanding inequity in the state’s education funding formula during his budget address earlier this month. But Shapiro’s proposed isn’t enough, Waite said, nor what he and others were hoping for when they successfully sued the state over the formula.

“We are grateful for every dollar of funding we receive,” the superintendent said. “But the final budget must be larger to meet the urgency of this moment. The size of the proposed budget increases are not the down payment we need to provide the quality public education guaranteed in the state constitution — and to begin to plan out a system that gives our kids what they deserve.”

Likewise, the attorneys who fought on behalf of his district and five others across the state — alongside parents and other plaintiffs, including the Pennsylvania NAACP — said the governor’s plan “does not do enough to meet the standard set by our state constitution.” 

The comments came a month after Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer issued a 786-page decision ruling Pennsylvania’s school funding formula unconstitutional after the long-running litigation. She found the stark disparities in student outcomes between high- and low-wealth districts were directly related to the vast difference in resources made available to them.

A spokesman from the governor’s office told The 74 that no one could predict allocations beyond this budget cycle, but that the current proposal “is not the final step” in addressing school funding inequity. 

Shapiro is asking for an additional $103.8 million for special education programs and $100 million for school safety and security grants. His proposal also includes $100 million to reduce and remediate environmental hazards in schools and a more than $60 million increase in higher education funding.

Attorneys from the Education Law Center-PA, The Public Interest Law Center and O’Melveny & Myers LLP said in a statement that this year’s increases to the basic education fund are .

Last year’s education budget, the attorneys noted, included a $225 million supplement for the 100 most underfunded school districts. These so-called Level Up monies prioritized those districts for the past two years. 

“This proposal also takes a step backward: while last year’s budget provided additional support for the Commonwealth’s most deeply underfunded districts through the Level Up program, this one does not,” the lawyers said in a joint statement. 

Waite, the Shenandoah Valley superintendent, said his students have waited long enough. The district’s English learner population has more than tripled in the past 15 years and classroom teachers of other disciplines are stretched thin.

“I have math teachers in the secondary level teaching more than one content area in the same classroom: Honors Trigonometry and Algebra II in one class — with geometry and trigonometry in another,” he said.

Many of the district’s rooftop exhaust fans and HVAC systems date back to 1982. It is also in need of masonry work on retaining walls, sidewalks and outdoor stairways, some of which are disintegrating and have not been upgraded in decades.

Susan Spicka, executive director for Education Voters of Pennsylvania, founded in 2008 to promote a pro public education agenda with the public, said she recognizes the enormity of creating a fair funding formula but wished to see a far bigger number in this latest budget proposal: She lamented that it did not appear to prioritize those school systems most in need. 

“For two years, the Legislature and governor, on a bipartisan basis, recognized we need to target money to the neediest districts,” she said. “To see he took a step backward was really strange, and very disappointing. That supplement has really made a very big difference in those school districts.”

Shapiro’s office, which at first insisted that Level Up funding was in the budget, did not respond to later pushback from critics.

The new governor addressed head-on Judge Jubelirer’s “call to action” in his recent budget announcement.

“Her remedy was for us to get around the table and come up with a solution that ensures every child has access to a thorough and efficient education,” he said of the judge’s decision. “While theoretically there’s still time left to file an appeal, all indications are that Judge Jubelirer’s ruling will stand. And that means we are all acknowledging that the court has ordered us to come to the table and come up with a better system, one that passes constitutional muster. I’m ready to meet you there.”

The budget will require approval from a Republican-control Senate and . The Legislature is required to approve the budget by June 30. 

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday ruled the state’s school funding formula unconstitutional, noting it leaves poor districts unable to afford the teachers, counselors, curriculum and building repairs necessary to meet students’ needs  — and keep them safe. 

After an eight-year legal battle, Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer’s decision came down resoundingly on the side of the families, school districts and advocates who sued for more money. She found the stark disparities in outcomes between students in high- and low-wealth districts were directly related to the vast difference in resources made available to them by a state funding formula reliant on local property taxes.

Jubelirer said it is now up to the state to craft a more equitable system for its schoolchildren. Her ruling did not come with a timetable — though it did advise all relevant parties to do so at “the first opportunity” — nor a specific payment amount. Although Pennsylvania has since directed more money to its public schools, the plaintiffs had alleged districts were being underfunded by $4.6 billion a year.

“All witnesses agree that every child can learn,” the judge concluded at the end of her . “It is now the obligation of the Legislature, Executive Branch, and educators, to make the constitutional promise a reality in this Commonwealth.”

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, a senior attorney with the Public Interest Law Center who represented the school districts, said the judge’s ruling marked an extraordinary moment. 

“This is an earthquake that will reverberate for the children of Pennsylvania for a long, long, long time,” he said.

Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center, another of the firms challenging the funding formula, called the ruling a clear and unequivocal victory for public school children across Pennsylvania. 

“The court ruled the right to an education is a fundamental right,” she said, adding it “found that nothing justifies the gross disparities between low-wealth and high-wealth school districts that we see across our state. We are excited and really enthusiastic about what will happen for the trajectory of the lives of schoolchildren in Pennsylvania.”

It’s unclear whether the decision will be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Patrick Northen, John Krill and Anthony Holtzman, three of the defendants’ attorneys, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. During the trial, they argued state lawmakers had met their constitutional obligations to provide an “adequate education” and questioned whether the plaintiff districts had directed their resources to meet the most serious student needs.

Pennsylvania’s school funding formula has long been considered among the nation’s most inequitable, with 38% coming from the state and 43% from local property taxes. That ratio ranks the Commonwealth 45th nationally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. 

Jubelirer ruled local control — the notion that local communities decide on their own how much of their resources to devote to public education — was no excuse for the types of inequities described during the 49-day trial. 

The court proceedings involved dozens of witnesses — many from the six school districts that filed the lawsuit back in November 2014 — along with 1,700 exhibits that proved, in her opinion, poor districts were unable to meet students’ needs. 

Many students do not qualify for college-level Advanced Placement courses in high school because of an achievement gap that began in their elementary years that could not be corrected, administrators testified. 

A lack of space at one of William Penn’s elementary schools means art and music is taught in the basement in a room that has an opening to a sump pump. 

Makeshift classrooms have been set up inside hallways, closets and basements throughout these school systems. Many buildings are plagued by roaches, rodents, leaky roofs, lead paint, mold and asbestos. Some lack heat, air conditioning and potable water.

“It is evident to the Court that the current system of funding public education has disproportionately, negatively impacted students who attend schools in low-wealth school districts,” Jubelirer wrote. “This disparity is the result of a funding system that is heavily dependent on local tax revenue, which benefits students in high-wealth districts.” 

The evidence, she said, supported “the inescapable conclusion that these students are not receiving a meaningful opportunity to succeed,” adding that consistent achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students was tantamount to a violation of the state Constitution’s equal protection clause.

She said, too, that the funding formula “does not adequately take into account student needs, which are generally higher in low-wealth districts.”

Jubelirer said the opposing side has not proven local control would be undermined by a more equitable funding system. 

“Local control could be promoted by providing low-wealth districts with real choice, instead of choices dictated by their lack of needed funds,” she wrote. 

The defendants told the court the state requires only a minimal basic education without regard to outcomes for students, which are influenced by several factors well beyond schools’ reach. They said, too, that the Commonwealth needs low-skill, low-wage labor. 

“I think there is a need for retail workers, people who crust,” said Krill, the lawyer defending then-Assembly Speaker Jake Corman, during the trial. “My point is, do these proficiency standards actually in any way imaginable serve the needs of the Commonwealth such as they should be mandatory across the board? I think the answer is no.” 

Newly elected Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro filed an in May 2022 in support of the lawsuit back when he served as the state’s attorney general, writing that the defendants in the case wanted the court only to determine whether Pennsylvania’s education system provides students with the “opportunity” to obtain a constitutionally sufficient education. 

“But they ask the Court to read too little into the word ‘opportunity,’” he wrote. “The opportunity… is meaningless if the public education system cannot actually provide a thorough and efficient education to all students, regardless of socioeconomic background.”

Shapiro, in a statement released Wednesday, seemed to support his initial argument. 

“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,” he said. “My Administration is in the process of reviewing the Commonwealth Court’s opinion and we are determining next steps.” 

Acting Attorney General Michelle Henry said her office is still in the process of thoroughly reviewing the lengthy opinion, “but we were gratified to learn today that the Court agreed with our position, paving the way for Pennsylvania lawmakers to come together to create a new system that works for all children and families.”

The case was filed by the William Penn, Panther Valley, Greater Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre Area and Shenandoah Valley school districts alongside the School District of Lancaster. It names parents, children,  the NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools among the petitioners. 

The current lists of defendants, which has changed since the case was first filed, includes Gov. Shapiro, Secretary of Education Khalid N. Mumin, Senate President pro tempore Kim Ward and House Speaker Mark Rozzi. During the trial, the governor’s office and the state education department did not fight to counter the plaintiffs’ claims while the state legislative leaders did.

The Commonwealth Court initially dismissed the case, siding with the defendants by ruling school funding decisions are the responsibility of the legislature, not the judicial branch. The plaintiffs appealed to the state Supreme Court, which sent the case back to the Commonwealth Court in 2017 for trial.

Urevick-Ackelsberg said the state’s obligation to fix the system starts now, even if the case is again appealed to the state Supreme Court. “We are going to assume the General Assembly is going to follow the law. We will be back in court to enforce whatever we need to to make sure they do so.”

The attorney said he believes the issue will be addressed relatively quickly. School funding cases are notoriously known to drag on for years, even after those challenging the formulas prevail in court.

“Do we expect this to take years and years? No,” he said. “If there is an appeal, we will do everything in our power to make sure the ruling is not stayed … and we get to work right away.”

With that in mind, the 14-year-old from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, built a robot hand controlled by a glove. “It has a lot of applications,” he says, “but primarily for search and rescue.” The user’s movements are copied to the robot intuitively. And he built it all for less than $100. (See the robot in action right here)

For his invention, he won the Samueli Foundation Prize of $25,000 at the 2022 Broadcom MASTERS, a national science and engineering competition for middle school students. He says he’ll use the prize for college tuition.

Share Thomas’s story — and check out this other recent coverage of teenagers breaking new ground in STEM: 

• Florida Teen Invents World’s First Sustainable Electric Vehicle Motor
  
• California Teen Creates App to Help Kids Struggling With Food Allergies
  
• Meet the 16 Under 16 in STEM Achievers

—Produced & Edited by Jim Fields

They’re the stuff of every happy ending in movies or on tv: Proud parents in the stands or in the auditorium seats, cheering on their children as they succeed on stage, in the classroom, or on the athletic field.

But for too many American families, the demands of work and the economy make it hard for parents to be there when their kids need them the most. But a bill sponsored by two Democratic lawmakers from Philadelphia .

On Monday, Reps. Donna Bullock and Elizabeth Fiedler  for a bill requiring employers to give eligible parents eight hours of unpaid leave a year to attend school-related activities.

Parents of children living with a disability, or those with an individualized education program would be allowed an additional four hours of leave, the two lawmakers wrote in a memo seeking support for their proposal.

“As legislators, we have an obligation to provide a framework for employers to allow parent-employees the scheduling flexibility to be involved with their children’s education,” Bullock and Fiedler wrote in their memo to their House colleagues.

 that  leads to better outcomes for students, from higher grades and test scores to more regular school attendance and better social skills.

“Parent involvement motivates children to learn, leading to higher grades,” according to the education website Positive Action.

That level of involvement “is crucial in producing a high impact on the student’s performance. The higher the degree of parental involvement, the higher the impact on the child’s academic achievement,” the group .

In their memo to their colleagues, Bullock and Fiedler offered a similar sentiment.

“Students with engaged parents or other caregivers earn higher grades and test scores, have better social skills, and show improved behavior,” the two lawmakers wrote. “The connection can make a difference at all age levels and the more intensively involved parents are, the greater the positive impact.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Pennsylvania is set to receive the first installment of federal funding to improve and expand broadband internet access across the commonwealth, Gov. Tom Wolf said last week.

State and federal officials joined Wolf in the Governor’s Reception room of the state Capitol on Thursday to announce that $6.6 million from President Joe Biden’s “Internet for All” initiative is on its way to Pennsylvania.

The federal infusion is the first installment of more than $100 million Pennsylvania is set to receive for projects that expand and improve high-speed internet access in urban and rural areas of the commonwealth.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“We really need to do a good job of making sure every corner of Pennsylvania is connected in a robust way to the internet,” Wolf, who leaves office in January, said. “This $6.6 million is the beginning of a generational change waiting for Pennsylvanians.”

The funds, and broadband projects statewide, are overseen by the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority, created by Wolf in 2021 as a independent agency of the Department of Community and Economic Development.

In mid-November, the authority released its for spending the money to expand broadband access in Pennsylvania.

“With guidance from the Pennsylvania Broadband Authority, distribution will be carefully targeted for guaranteed progress,” Wolf said.

Wolf said that the lack of affordable and accessible broadband is hindering Pennsylvania’s economic growth.

“The lack of consistent, affordable, quality statewide broadband keeps children from learning. It keeps businesses from growing, it keeps the job market for workers much more limited than it should be, and it reduces medical care options for all of us,” Wolf said. “����’s one of the biggest challenges holding Pennsylvania’s economy back right now.”

Western Beaver County School District and Blackhawk School District Superintendent Dr. Rob Postupac echoed Wolf’s comments, adding that “families living without broadband face significant barriers in educational opportunities, employment opportunities and access to basic needs such as healthcare through telemedicine.”

“For too long now, those in our rural communities have had to live in digital darkness,” Postupac said. “The time has come to tackle this issue.”

Earlier this week, the Wolf administration’s broadband authority asked Pennsylvanians to review Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maps, which are used in accessibility and infrastructure projects, for accuracy before they are finalized in mid-January.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Democrat Joshua Shapiro will be the next governor of Pennsylvania, beating out opponent Doug Mastriano by a wide margin, winning 56% of the vote compared to 42% for his opponent. Shapiro has said he would better fund public education and support abortion rights while his opponent pledged the opposite. “Tonight, voters from Gen Z to our seniors, voters from all walks of life, have given me the honor of a lifetime, given me the chance to serve you as Pennsylvania’s next governor,” Shapiro told supporters Tuesday night in suburban Philadelphia. Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville Wednesday identified Shapiro as the candidate to watch coming out of the 2022 election cycle.

The Pennsylvania governor’s race — a face-off between a well-funded ambitious young climber already eyed as a future presidential contender and a radical right-wing election denier whose own GOP party leaders refuse to support — is among the most watched in the nation for its 2024 implications. 

The winner could wield significant power over how votes are counted in the next presidential election, one in which Donald Trump seeks to like Republican Doug Mastriano, in a key battleground state.

Education is a leading issue in political contests across the country with Republicans pushing to remove discussions of race and gender from the classroom while leaning into greater parental control. But the script has flipped somewhat in Pennsylvania, with Mastriano’s stance so extreme he’s mobilized school board opponents to take unusual steps to block him while Democrat Josh Shapiro has embraced a school choice avenue usually reserved for conservatives. Both advocate stronger parent influence in schools. 

Mastriano, a 58-year-old retired Army colonel who joined the state Senate in 2019, has pledged to , — which — clamp down on teachings around race and privilege and ban transgender athletes from playing on the teams with which they identify.

Shapiro, the state’s attorney general since 2017, has said he will continue Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s mission to . Shapiro, 49, has for those school districts engaged in a multi-year legal battle with the state for g and called a Republican-backed bill to curb transgender athletes’ rights

But Shapiro favors ,” which would allow children attending the state’s poorest-performing schools to access money to pay for tutoring or tuition at a different public or private campus. The pending scholarship bill would 191,000 children — a vast majority are low-income students of color — in 382 schools across 76 of the state’s 500 school districts. 

Shapiro is leading in several polls and has raised more than $50 million for his campaign, the largest war chest in state history for that office. While Mastriano’s coffers are — and some Republicans wish they’d selected another candidate — the state lawmaker has at least one influential backer: . 

The former president said recently Mastriano would curb crime, bolster the state economy and work to ensure a fair election — but Shapiro said the candidate is motivated by a different objective. 

“For Doug Mastriano, this isn’t about the people of Pennsylvania — it’s about a victory for Donald Trump in 2024,” the attorney general wrote on Sept. 30. “He knows that the key to a presidential win is by winning Pennsylvania, and he’ll use whatever means necessary to make it happen.”

Mastriano, who recently announced in the lead up to the Nov. 8 election to somehow improve his chances, said he is the right candidate to put the state in order. Known for his extreme views, he’s from a 2019 assertion that women who violate abortion restrictions should be charged with murder. The candidate also has pledged to toughen voting laws, a notion that could gain support in the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.  

“With record high inflation, increased crime, burdensome taxes, and indoctrination of our kids under failed Democrat policy, it’s time for a bold leader to get our state back on track,” he wrote Sept. 29. “I’ll unshackle our energy sector, restore law and order, slash taxes, and ban CRT.”

But it was Mastriano’s early statements about how he would approach school funding that aligned forces across several fronts to thwart him. Mastriano said in March he’d like to and would allow students to attend a school of their choosing, including public, private, religious, cyber or homeschool.

“This extreme proposal would be devastating to Pennsylvania’s public schools and 1.7 million students,” according to a statement from the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “Imagine a public education system with half the teachers, counselors, nurses, and support staff who teach and serve our students.”

The Republican — 70 school board members from across the state signed an condemning the strategy, calling it “out of touch with the vast majority of Pennsylvania families” — but no new plan has been unveiled. 

Chris Lilienthal, spokesman for the 178,000-member teachers association, said Mastriano never responded to an invitation to discuss pressing educational issues either through a survey or live interview with the union’s political action committee.

Shapiro did meet with the group — and . 

“We sat down with Attorney General Shapiro and walked away thinking he listens to the concerns of educators,” Lilienthal said. “He talked about reducing the overuse of standardized testing … and, in this age of teacher shortages, he talked about just how important that issue will be if elected governor. We have not heard Mastriano even talk about that.” 

David Lapp, director of policy research at , a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, said equity should be the new governor’s top priority concerning education. 

“Whether it is in access to school facilities, teachers and staff, challenging curriculum, or a positive school climate, the Pennsylvania public school system is defined by inequity,” said Lapp, whose group uses research as the basis for improving education for traditionally underserved students. “Virtually no other state’s public schools provide so much to its white students and wealthy students while providing so little to its students of color and its low-income students.” 

A member of the Senate Education Committee, Mastriano said he would, if elected, crack down on teachings about race and privilege — , saying they are “detrimental” and can lead to bullying. He called policies to protect transgender students “bat crap crazy” — he’s likened ” — telling supporters this summer that they won’t have to worry about “male domination” on women’s athletic teams. 

He’s also called out his opponent for attending and sending his children to ” Jewish schools. Mastriano paid $5,000 in consulting fees to the far-right social media platform Gab, which embraces QAnon conspiracy theories, misinformation and . Its founder is a known anti-Semite from whom Mastriano has recently attempted to . 

Neither candidate returned calls for comment.

Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the tax-exempt Education Law Center, a key player in the years-long equitable school funding case, wouldn’t comment on either contender but said parents — and all Pennsylvanians — should pay close attention to their positions on education.

“The state’s role is especially important in Pennsylvania’s less affluent communities that are unable to raise sufficient funding locally to provide students with a high-quality education,” she said. 

Tony B. Watlington Sr., superintendent of The School District of Philadelphia, agreed that the outcome is critical.  

“Regardless of who is elected, it is my hope that they will ensure that the commonwealth finally meets its constitutional obligation to adequately and equitably fund our schools, solve our educator pipeline issues so that every student has access to a high-quality teacher, and invest again in our school facilities,” he said. 

Shapiro, a state representative from 2005 to 2011, has won wide support, including from a number of , some of whom have called Mastriano dangerous. 

Mastriano, in his current role, has promoted legislation to access and review all instructional materials used throughout the school year — and to opt out of curriculum they find objectionable.

Shapiro, a father of four, also has promised by giving them two seats on the state’s Board of Education.

“Right now, there are more seats reserved on the board for politicians than parents,” he wrote. “That needs to change.”

Mastriano made a name for himself by railing against mask mandates and business closures at the height of the pandemic and for promoting the Big Lie. He has faced calls for resignation for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection: Records show his campaign paid for buses headed to Washington, D.C. days before the deadly attack. 

He’s said he did not enter the Capitol building and has not been charged with a crime. But he has testified before the congressional committee investigating the assault. He cut short the interview after questioning its authority and later . 

Unlike his Democratic opponent, who’s received big money from outside the state, including deep-pocketed donors from California — and his wife, Kate Capshaw, among them — Mastriano’s campaign is funded mostly by small donations from within Pennsylvania. 

The candidate, who rarely grants interviews to mainstream news outlets, in May but has done little to campaign of late, leaving many questioning his wider voter appeal. His supporters include ” who says she speaks directly with God and espouses QAnon conspiracy theories.

was among the first states to adopt such a measure in 2015. , signed into law by the governor in 2018, took effect two years later amid a flurry of conservative-led education initiatives, many aimed at curtailing classroom discussions about the history of racism in America.

While some states allow schools to develop their own assessments around civics, others use the . Several states do not require schools to report their results, and the mandate often carries with it no additional funding. That’s led critics to wonder if the push is largely symbolic — and some civics experts to find the movement wanting.

Donna Phillips, vice president and chief program officer for the California-based , questioned the use of the citizenship test as a means to impart civics lessons. 

“The naturalization test, for someone who is not in education, social studies or civics, is an easy grab,” she said, but it’s incomplete. 

While it might be better than nothing for those states that do not offer civics in other courses, it’s minimal on its own, requiring only rote memorization rather than critical thinking, she said. 

Data shows nearly 109,000 Pennsylvania students were assessed in the subject in 2020-21, the last school year for which data was available, and nearly 92,000 passed.

The state, a in the upcoming midterm elections, has 500 school districts ranging in size from 200 students to more than 140,000. Some reported the results for the entire district in one pass/fail number while others sent individual outcomes for each school. 

In some cases — as seen in Allegheny Valley, Interboro and South Fayette Township school districts — nearly all children passed. In others — including Annville Cleona, Southwest Leadership Academy, and some 9th graders within the School District of Lancaster — half failed. 

Nearly 18,000 students earned a perfect score.

Taking civics to heart in central Pennsylvania 

Todd Cammarata, a social studies teacher at Tyrone Area High School in central Pennsylvania, said all citizens — not just those who go through the naturalization process — should have a basic understanding of government, history, culture and geography. 

“����’s easier to get buy-in from students on the importance of civic education when I ask them, ‘Do you think every natural-born U.S. citizen should know what we expect naturalized citizens to know?’” he said. “Their answer is almost always ‘Yes.”

No test is perfect, Cammarata said, which leads to other important lessons. 

“The only woman specifically mentioned on the (U.S. citizenship) test is Susan B. Anthony and the only civil rights leader or person of color specifically mentioned is Martin Luther King, Jr.,” he said. “So we discuss what they think might be missing from the test or things that are there that are not necessary. This usually leads to a lively discussion of what’s important for citizens to know.”

Less than 10% of Cammarata’s students pass the test on their first try — that initial attempt is a practice test meant to assess their civics knowledge — but nearly all sail through the exam months later, he said.

Some score exceptionally high: Roughly 15 of 45 students last year answered all 100 questions correctly, exempting them from Cammarata’s final exam as per the teacher’s promise. 

Austin Lucas, 15 and a 10th grader, was among the few who passed the test on the first try. 

“It was stuff I learned in school years before,” he said. “I have a pretty good memory.”

Logan Rumberger, 16,  also in the 10th grade, didn’t know enough about the House of Representatives to earn a passing mark on the first go-round but is confident he’ll score higher on the actual test. Like many of Cammarata’s students, he believes all those who live in the United States should have this basic knowledge. 

“Other people have to take it to become U.S. citizens,” he said of the naturalization test. “If we are born here, I feel we should know about our country.” 

Phillips, of the Center for Civic Education, said educators are wise to go deeper than the exam itself. 

“State-level social studies specialists and their district-level counterparts can really do a lot to move beyond the nature of the test,” she said, particularly when results are reported to the state and passage is mandatory for graduation. 

In that case, she said, the topic gains importance and those who work in social studies acquire influence. 

“A lot of times, when assessments are offered only in ELA, math and, in some cases, science, social studies is left behind,” she said. “Getting a seat at the table at the state level is an advantage.” 

Required, but not reported

Arizona, which mandated a civics requirement in 2015, and now requires schools to report the results to the state — and make them .

adopted the civics requirement in 2015 and it went into effect the following year. State officials don’t keep track of test results because it is not a state-administered exam. But a spokesman for the state department of education said Utah’s graduation rate last year was 88.1%, so “it is safe to assume that it (the statewide passage rate) is at least that high.”

law also passed in 2015, but didn’t take effect until the . Since that time, students must correctly answer 65 of 100 civics questions to graduate and may retake the test until they reach that goal. Results are not reported to the state: They are kept at the district level. 

civics requirement began with students in grade 9 in the 2017-18 school year. Since that time, they’ve been required to correctly answer 30 of 50 questions pulled from the country’s naturalization exam to pass the test. Passage, though, is not a graduation requirement and results are not reported to the state. has a similar policy. 

Kentucky’s policy, which requires students to pass a 100-question civics test, took effect July 1, 2018. The exam was

Some state’s requirements have not yet gone into effect. 

July 1, 2023, when students will be required to pass a locally developed civics exam covering the structure, function, and history of the United States government; the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and noteworthy government and civic leaders. Aspiring graduates must also correctly answer 70 percent  of 128 naturalization test questions.

Educators look for their knowledge to extend well beyond high school. 

“I am hopeful that my students retain some of what the citizenship test teaches them, but I am even more hopeful that students take their rights and responsibilities as citizens seriously as they become adults,” Cammarata said. 

A Pennsylvania judge’s highly anticipated ruling on a landmark school finance case could encourage similar lawsuits in other parts of the country or prompt firms to back away after a mix of legal victories and losses in other states, experts say.

The case could steer hundreds of millions of dollars to Pennsylvania’s poorest districts. 

It was filed in 2014 by a coalition of parents, school districts and nonprofit organizations alleging legislative leaders, state education officials and the governor failed to fund a “thorough and efficient” school system.

Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, who heard post-trial closing arguments from both sides Tuesday, is not expected to announce her decision for several more months.

The defendants have said the state requires only a minimal basic education without regard to outcomes for students, which are influenced by myriad factors beyond schools’ reach. They argued, too, that schools should meet the needs of the Commonwealth, which include low-skill, low-wage labor. 

“I think there is a need for retail workers, people who crust,” said John Krill, an attorney representing Assembly Speaker Jake Corman, during the trial.�� “My point is, do these proficiency standards actually in any way imaginable serve the needs of the Commonwealth such as they should be mandatory across the board? I think the answer is no.” 

Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs, has been with the case since the beginning. She said she was heartened by Jubelirer’s questions during Tuesday’s day-long hearing, saying they reflected the judge’s desire to understand the nuances of this complex case. 

McInerney said the evidence presented during the trial, which stretched from November to March, was strong.

“We have children learning in closets, hallways, in overcrowded spaces, with lead chips, mold in the ceilings,” she said. shows Pennsylvania high schools ranked among the five worst states nationally based on the gaps in opportunity for Black and Hispanic students compared to their white peers. 

Elizabeth Rementer, press secretary for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said he’s empathetic to schools’ chronic underfunding. He and state lawmakers earlier this month allocated , in next year’s budget, money that will help the state’s poorest districts, including Philadelphia. But, Rementer said, the governor recognizes this is not a permanent solution. 

“This increase in funding has not solved the various difficulties schools face,” she said in a statement. “We acknowledge that the current system of school funding results in some districts whose per-pupil allocations are significantly lower than students in other districts … Pennsylvania must continue to improve equity in education and provide all students with the tools and skills they will need after graduation.”

Wolf is a defendant in the case but he is not actively fighting it: Only Republican state lawmakers have taken up that battle. Thomas DeCesar, who is also representing GOP state Assemblyman Corman, argued this week that the court would have to go too far in imposing its judgment about school funding decisions if it found for the plaintiffs.

“This court would have to become a super school board to determine at what level schools are meeting constitutional requirements,” the lawyer said, according to

William S. Koski, a professor at Stanford University’s law school and graduate school of education, said the case is important for three critical reasons, starting with the groundbreaking ruling that allowed it to reach trial. 

For years, he said, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that questions of school finance should be determined only by the Legislature. But 2017 brought about a major reversal — a critical win for the plaintiffs.

“In 2017, the state Supreme Court said … there is some manageable way for a court to get its arms around whether kids in Pennsylvania are getting an adequate education,” he said. 

Add to that, Pennsylvania has a large and diverse student body spread across urban, suburban and rural communities, making the outcome relevant in many other states, he said. 

Lastly, the trial itself, he said, “was fully and thoughtfully litigated with some of the premier experts testifying on both sides,” allowing the court — and the nation — to consider the full scope of the issue.

Judge Jubelirer’s decision will come after big losses for plaintiffs on this same issue in and and victories in , and , although the legislatures in all three dragged their heels in implementing the courts’ orders, Koski said.

The outcome in the Pennsylvania case is incredibly consequential, McInerney said. A victory for her side would mean “every school across the Commonwealth would be required to have the capacity to provide a high quality, contemporary education for every student,” which is what her organization believes is currently mandated in the state’s Constitution: 

The document aims to prevent the type of two-tiered system that exists today, she said, which provides children with radically different educational opportunities based upon wealth and property tax values.

 “That system doesn’t need to be uniform,” McInerney said. “But it does need to ensure a level, adequate, high-quality education for all.”

Pennsylvania ranks in the percentage of education costs paid for by the state versus local districts. Some districts tax their residents at far higher rates than their more affluent neighbors only to raise less money. 

David S. Knight, assistant professor at the University of Washington, agreed the outcome for students will be impactful well into their adulthood. 

Recent studies, which draw on more robust and reliable datasets and methods, show that large increases in school funding, “especially through court-mandated legislative reforms,” improve long-term outcomes, he said.

“At the heart of many of these cases is the question of what drives success in schools,” Knight said. “Many would argue, pointing to a long list of research studies, that for schools to function well, they need an adequate level of resources. And schools serving higher-poverty student populations need additional resources.”

Increased funding, McInerney said, could turn schools around, allowing them to afford the type of support their students need most, including reading specialists who can help them reach grade level.

“����’s absolutely clear that money matters,” she said, adding her side encouraged the court to consider whether and what percentage of students graduate from high school and attend college. “This current school funding system in Pennsylvania has impacted generations of children and we need to start to reverse this. We need to have a remedy.”