A Historic Victory Students!for

Pennsylvania’s School Funding System Declared Unconstitutional

February 7, 2023, was a historic day for Pennsylvania’s children, and a beforeand-after moment for public schools. Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, in a 786-page decision, ruled that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional and must be reformed.

Our clients, from small towns and cities in every corner of the state, stood up for years to make it clear that Pennsylvania’s two-tiered public school funding system, divided by wealth, cannot continue. In Pennsylvania, a school district’s local wealth has determined which fourth graders get the help they need in reading, which middle school students have safe buildings, and which teenagers can prepare for college. Students of color are concentrated in the lowest-wealth school districts, which are the most deeply underfunded. Pennsylvania has some of the nation’s largest disparities in educational resources and opportunities between poor students and their peers, and between students of color and their white peers.

With our co-counsel from Education Law Center - PA and O’Melveny, we proved that the students who need the most have the least, because the state legislature shortchanges low-wealth communities. Now, it’s time to change that.