Hearings on a Fair Funding System Continue |
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Pennsylvania’s 15-member Basic Education Funding Commission is midway through a series of 10 public hearings in preparation for a response to the February Commonwealth Court ruling in our fair funding case that ordered state officials to develop a school funding system that meets constitutional standards.
ELC has joined with other advocates to emphasize that the court ruling compels the commission to address four key priorities:
- Determining the total cost to deliver a constitutionally compliant education by identifying an “adequacy target” for each school district.
- Ensuring that these funding targets reflect unmet needs beyond K-12 basic education funding, such as facilities, special education, and pre-K.
- Establishing a fair and equitable “state share” for those targets so that school districts can reach adequate funding with a reasonable local tax effort.
- Creating a plan with a reasonable timeline for the state to promptly fulfill its share of those targets.
The commission heard testimony from school funding expert Dr. Matthew Kelly, who provided an analysis of how much additional funding is needed to ensure that all public schools can offer a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary public education. Dr. Kelly estimated, based on spending in the state’s successful school districts, that an additional $6.2 billion annually is needed for instruction and operations in the state’s public schools, not counting costs associated with providing pre-K and making school facilities safe and adequate. |
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ELC legal director Maura McInerney testified before the Basic Education Funding Commission on Sept. 13.
Commission hearings are livestreamed. We encourage supporters of an adequate, equitable, and racially just funding system to make sure your concerns are heard in this process by going to the website of the commission and submitting a comment. A commission report is due Nov. 30.
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An Inspiring 48th Anniversary Celebration |
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Thanks to all the individuals and organizations who attended and supported ELC’s 48th Anniversary Celebration on Sept. 27!
Those in attendance were clearly moved by the remarks of our awardees: Troutman Pepper partner and former ELC board member Solomon Hunter Jr., honored for partnering with ELC in multiple ways, who encouraged other law firms to work alongside ELC attorneys; and Amaiyah-Monet Parker, a proud graduate of Philadelphia public schools and first-year student at George Mason University, who powerfully explained the importance of centering Black girls like herself as student experts in our groundbreaking report We Need Supportive Spaces That Celebrate Us: Black Girls Speak Out About Public Schools. ELC also acknowledged Juvenile Law Center’s Youth Advocacy Programs, POPPYN, We REIGN Inc., and Youth United for Change, the organizations that supported the student experts and leaders in writing the report.
The dynamic duo of Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph and Sen. Vincent Hughes provided a video message that was both a celebration and a call to action: Commonwealth Court’s school funding order is truly a historic victory, and we must together ensure that it is fully implemented. And many thanks to Sen. Hughes for joining us in person and sharing inspiring remarks about the path forward to achieve this important goal.
It’s not too late to support our work! Thank you for your partnership! Here are a few photo highlights from the evening.
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Centerpieces at the event were made from the court ruling in our school funding case,
thanks to ELC’s Melissia McKittrick and Ariella Gregson.
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ELC board members Gretchen Santamour, Rotonya Carr,
and John Lee with executive director Deborah Gordon Klehr.
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Amaiyah-Monet Parker (right) and Deborah Gordon Klehr. |
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State Sen. Vincent Hughes. |
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Check Out Our Back-to-School Guide |
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We encourage you to browse and use the comprehensive set of rights-based resources in our updated 2023 Back to School Guide, published in September. Arranged by topic, our guide includes links to more than 75 ELC fact sheets, self-advocacy tools, and other resources to help families and child-serving professionals ensure equal access to public education. These resources have been updated to reflect the latest legal and real-world developments on the issues addressed as well as to more systematically examine and address issues of racial inequity and discrimination.
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Oct. 1 — Oct. 7 is Banned Books Week
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With extremist groups pushing for book bans and restrictions in schools and libraries in Pennsylvania and across the country, our response through activities like participation in Banned Books Week is critical. In schools, the targets of these bans are most often books that include LGBTQ+ characters and themes and challenge homophobia and transphobia, as well as books that feature Black and Brown characters’ experiences and address racism.
ELC attorney Ashli Giles-Perkins will be speaking on a panel on Tuesday evening, Oct. 3, about censorship in Pennsylvania schools and how to respond. The event is co-sponsored with the League of Women Voters and Education Voters PA. Register here to attend.
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Students from Central York’s Panther Anti Racist Union joined with legislators
on Sept. 19 to call for adoption of the Pennsylvania Freedom to Read Act, H.B. 1506.
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One concrete and hopeful move to limit school district book censorship is House Bill 1506, also known as the Freedom to Read Act. Awaiting action in the General Assembly, the bill would provide for parental oversight of their own children’s book choices but would not allow parents or school boards to limit the right to read of other students and families. The bill emphasizes that students “have a right to access a diverse range of age-relevant information, stories, perspectives and ideas.”
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ELC Applauds Passage of New
Juvenile Justice Reform Bills
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We are pleased to announce that the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27 passed H.B. 1708, which seeks to reduce the number of students entering the justice system from schools by prioritizing diversion and providing grants to create school programs to ensure accountability without law enforcement involvement. This important legislation, which ELC worked on with partners for months, adopts reforms recommended by the bipartisan Juvenile Justice Task Force in 2021. The bill empowers the state Department of Education to ensure that when students are placed in juvenile justice facilities, they receive the education they need to stay on track to graduate.
Pennsylvania is an outlier nationally in our use of arrests and referrals to the justice system – ranking second in the country in student arrests. These students are pulled away from school and from attachments to family and community and set on a path toward disrupted schooling and further justice-system involvement.
This bill would dramatically reduce such referrals, which disproportionately impact students of color due to individual racial bias and systemic racism – with referral rates as much as five times higher for Black students than white students and as much as three times higher for Latinx students, despite no significant difference in behaviors. The bill would also implement a best-interest determination meeting to facilitate the student’s successful placement back in an appropriate educational setting.
ELC also supports HB 1381, an omnibus bill that gained committee approval on Sept. 27 and would make other improvements to the juvenile justice process, including ending the practice of automatically charging children as if they were adults (called “direct file”), requiring diversion for many lower-level charges, limiting school referrals to juvenile court, raising the minimum age of juvenile court jurisdiction, prohibiting pretrial detention of youth under 14, and eliminating juvenile fines and fees. |
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We're Offering Afterschool Office Hours
for Young People
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ELC's Equal Justice Works law fellow Zoe Masters will be hosting open, in-person office hours on Monday afternoon, Oct. 30, for young people to come with questions about school enrollment or other school-based legal issues. This event is hosted in collaboration with NOMO (New Options More Opportunities), an afterschool program at 925 N. Broad Street. Anyone is welcome, whether or not you are already part of NOMO. Follow @OurStoriesOurSchools on Instagram for more details coming soon! |
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Film Screening: A Call for Education Justice |
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“Divided Attention” is an Emmy-nominated documentary film about students in Chester-Upland School District, one of the districts most deeply harmed by Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional and unfair school funding system. ELC legal director Maura McInerney, who appears in the film, will be a panelist at a screening and discussion of the film at Widener University on Oct. 19 at 6:30 p.m.
The 70-minute film made in 2021, directed by Stephanie Ramones, follows four students from Toby Farms, a middle school in Chester, as they learn and practice mindfulness amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the threat of a full charter takeover. Learn more and RSVP here.
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Defending a Family's Right to Enroll |
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ELC often defends families baselessly accused of residency fraud. We recently assisted a family when their children were wrongfully disenrolled from school after the school questioned the family’s residency. The family lived within the school’s catchment area in a multigenerational home owned by the children’s grandparents. The grandparents, parents, and children all lived together in the home for many years, and the children attended the district previously without issues. But the school wrongfully advised the family that they needed to sign a nonresidency form indicating that the children were cared for by the grandparents because they owned the home.
ELC reached out to the school to advise that this was inappropriate and request that the students be immediately reenrolled as they had already provided sufficient proof of residency. The school then allowed the students to remain in the district.
ELC has found that the students who are most likely to be baselessly accused of residency fraud and disenrolled or subjected to residency hearings are most often families of color whose children are lawfully seeking enrollment or continued attendance in predominantly white school districts. We have successfully challenged such practices. We seek to uphold state guidance instructing that school districts and charter schools must be “flexible in verifying residency, and should consider what information is reasonable in light of the family’s situation.”
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We Welcome Jhoselyn and Makayla! |
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Jhoselyn Contreras is the new program associate in our Pittsburgh office, where she plays a lead role in assisting ELC's intake Helpline callers and supporting the organization's communications efforts.
Jhoselyn's journey in education began as an early education teacher, where she worked with infants through preschool-aged children, nurturing their growth and development. This hands-on experience in the classroom allowed her to witness firsthand the power of access to quality education.
Prior to joining ELC in August, Jhoselyn dedicated five years to elementary and middle school education. She served as an educator at Young Scholars of Central PA Charter School in State College (Centre County), where she specialized in teaching Spanish and actively contributed to creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment for her students.
Jhoselyn holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University. In Centre County, Jhoselyn worked with various nonprofit organizations championing the accessibility of services for children whose primary language is Spanish. Jhoselyn was honored this year with the Rose Cologne Volunteer of the Year Award by the Centre County Council for Human Services.
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Makayla Harrison joined ELC’s Philadelphia office in September as a Skadden Fellow. Makayla represents students in psychiatric facilities to enforce their education rights. Students who experience psychiatric hospitalization frequently face forcible removal from their school, are denied proper education while hospitalized, and face systemic barriers when transitioning back to their home school. This happens disproportionately to students who are Black, Brown, and in foster care. Makayla supports students in psychiatric facilities through legal representation, advocacy efforts, and community partnerships to raise awareness of the education rights of students in psychiatric facilities.
Makayla graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and Graduate School of Education in 2023. During law school, Makayla was a Toll Public Interest Scholar and Flom Youth Advocacy Scholar dedicated to advancing the rights of youth in Philadelphia. She advocated for youth through work with several Philadelphia public interest law organizations, including ELC. She also participated in the Interdisciplinary Child Advocacy Clinic, the School District of Philadelphia Law and Justice Mentorship Program, and the Christian Legal Clinic. Before law school, Makayla was an elementary school teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Job Opportunities in Our Pittsburgh Office |
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See our website for a description of internship opportunities at ELC.
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Education Law Center | 215-238-6970 (Philadelphia)| 412-258-2120 (Pittsburgh)| |
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A copy of the official registration and financial information of the Education Law Center may be obtained from the Department of State by calling toll-free, within Pennsylvania, 1-880-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement. |
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