Pottstown High School to host fair funding hearing on Sept. 28

POTTSTOWN — Just because a court has ruled Pennsylvania’s education funding system is unfair; and a commission has been formed to address the problem does not mean the fight for fair funding is over.

The bipartisan PA Basic Education Funding Commission, made up of PA senators and representatives, is holding hearings around the state. However, only one of those hearings are taking place anywhere near the biggest population center in the state, and no public comment is being taken at these hearings.

The only way for the public to make its thoughts known to the commission is through an email link at https://www.basiceducationfundingcommission.com/Contact/

POWER Metro, the interfaith advocacy group that’s been fighting for fair school funding for years, believes the people most affected by the state’s failure to properly fund their schools should be heard on the matter. “There is no priority placed on the counties of greatest funding inequity across the state,” according to a press release from POWER.

That’s why they are holding a series of hearings of their own in southeast Pennsylvania, the last of which will be at Pottstown High School on Thursday, Sept. 28, from 7 to 9 p.m.

POWER Metro is asking people to submit their thoughts on the subject and/or to attend the hearing in Pottstown to ensure their voices are heard. “We are asking everyone to act now to make the commission more accountable and to ensure that full and fair funding legislation gets to the floor this year.”

The group is calling its gatherings “people’s hearings” and they are designed “to give our community a chance to speak directly about the impact of inequity and why full/fair funding works.”

In Pottstown, seven years of underfunding has resulted in the district, its students and its taxpayers, being underfunded by more than $80 million, Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez testified in August.

An 800-page ruling in February by Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer found that Pennsylvania underfunds poorer school districts by about $4 billion.

Pennsylvania’s education funding system, which leans heavily on local property taxes, results in wealthier districts having more resources available for its students than poorer ones. The court found that system violates the state Constitution’s requirement that lawmakers provide a “thorough and efficient system” of education.”

In 2016, the state adopted a “fair funding formula” designed to provide more funding to poorer districts, but the formula only applies to “new” funding, meaning the bulk of education funding still follows the old, unfair formula.

To try to make up for this failure, Harrisburg than adopted a stop-gap “level up” plan for the 100 most under-funded districts, of which Pottstown is near the top. But now even that money is in limbo because of the budget impasse between the state Senate and the House over tax breaks for non-public schools.