From Fund Our Schools PA (https://www.fundourschoolspa.org/):
After nearly four months of testimony, Commonwealth Court heard closing arguments on Thursday, March 10. Presenting closing arguments for the school districts, parents, and organizations who filed this lawsuit, attorney Katrina Robson emphasized the principal point:
“Low-wealth districts do not have the resources that they need to prepare all children for college, career, and civic success.”
Read up on the culmination of this historic trial in our detailed recap of closing arguments.
Robson described the Pennsylvania Constitution’s education clause as “a promise to invest in every future citizen, no matter what corner of the Commonwealth they come from.” But currently, Robson said, the General Assembly maintains a “two-tiered” public education system divided by local wealth, a system of “educational ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’”
“One system for one people,” Robson said at the conclusion of her closing argument. “It’s time to keep that promise.”
She shared dozens of examples from trial testimony of the consequences thousands of students face from attending deteriorating schools that lack up-to-date materials and don’t have anywhere close to the staffing they need to address students’ academic and non-academic needs. She recalled testimony from Michael Horvath, a recent Wilkes-Barre graduate who recalled that attending a school where the water fountain didn’t work, the façade was crumbling, and rodents were common, “made you feel like you … didn’t matter.”
Robson charged that some of legislative respondents’ counter-arguments defending the current system “make a mockery of” the Constitution’s education clause, which was intended to ensure that the state did not have a two-tiered school system.
“Legislative respondents have suggested that disparities in educational resources and outcomes are acceptable because the Commonwealth needs people to, using their words, flip pizza crusts or work at McDonald’s,” she said, pointing to respondents’ comments suggesting that many Pennsylvania students have no use for algebra or biology.
School districts across the state will continue to struggle as long as the General Assembly leaves a substantial part of the funding burden—more than 44 other states—on local school districts, Robson said. In need-adjusted revenue, the poorest 20% of districts have about $7,000 less per pupil than the wealthiest.
Robson observed that the legislative leaders have attempted to prove – by reading long lists of districts’ course offerings in high schools – that ample educational opportunities are there for the taking. She recalled a comment from an attorney for House Speaker Bryan Cutler that some children are “more industrious.”
“Suggesting that this disaster is because children ignore opportunities allows us to place the blame for failure at their feet rather than the General Assembly’s,” Robson said. “all to constitutionally bless a system where wide swaths of students are failing to achieve and where particular groups of historically underserved students bear the brunt of it.”
“The catastrophic failures of this system are not because children look at course guides and aren’t smart enough or industrious enough to seize opportunities,” she said. “The failures are because they were denied those opportunities to begin with, from the very moment they had their needs triaged, as if they were walking into a field hospital instead of kindergarten. It was the system’s failure, not theirs.”
In their closing arguments, attorneys representing Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman and House Speaker Bryan Cutler reiterated said that the General Assembly was clearly meeting its constitutional obligations.
Representing Corman, attorney Thomas DeCesar argued that the constitution requires no more than a system offering an “adequate basic education.” He also contended that the court should look at inputs rather than outcomes in evaluating whether the state’s funding system meets constitutional standards.
In her rebuttal remarks that closed out the day and the trial, attorney Robson explained that respondents mischaracterized petitioners’ case as looking at outcomes alone. She argued that the court should look at disparities in Pennsylvania’s academic outcomes as well as evidence of disparities and deficiencies in educational inputs—neither of which are close to meeting the Constitution’s standard.
Senator Corman, she said, wants the court to only consider inputs “because it allows him to ignore the hundreds of thousands of children not meeting state standards; the 80% of low income, Black and Latino children failing to graduate from college; the achievement gaps that are the shame of the Commonwealth.”
With the trial complete, the case now moves to a post-trial phase for several months, involving legal briefs. A February 22 scheduling order set a timeline for post-trial briefing, with the final brief due July 6, to be followed by argument over legal issues in the case. Then, weeks or months later, the court will make its decision.
Thank you following this historic case for the future of public education in Pennsylvania.
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