The issues affecting you reveal explained discussed now on WGL- eight in focus. Hello, I'm Susan Pyro, *** judge has ruled that the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional. It's such *** huge, huge decision for kids. Pennsylvania relies heavily on property taxes to fund its public schools, causing *** wide gap between the state, its richest and poorest districts. The court found that nothing justifies the gross disparities between low wealth and high wealth school districts that we see across our state. Six school districts, including the school district of Lancaster, were named as plaintiffs in the case. It was easy enough to talk about all of the things we didn't have. They argued that the state isn't contributing its fair share, but House Republican leader, brian Cutler disagrees saying are declining test scores during periods of record? State funding have consistently demonstrated that money alone cannot educate students. Tonight we'll talk with an attorney who argued the case for the plaintiffs, the acting superintendent of the School district of Lancaster and *** representative of an organization dedicated to improving public education. Tonight we put school funding in focus. I'm joined now by Katie Robson, *** partner at Oh Melvin E. And Myers who served as lead trial counsel in this case. Thanks so much for being here. Oh, thank you, Susan for having me this trial went on for about four months. People might say why was it so long? Should my kids know that better than anyone? Because we wanted to give the court *** very full picture of what was going on in the commonwealth. So we had six petitioner districts philadelphia also testified and *** representative from the pars association also testified. The pennsylvania Association for rural school districts and what we were trying to show. The court was not just what was happening in terms of numbers, which we can present with experts and we did, but what was going on in the classrooms. So we had superintendents come in, we had people who actually ran the school district come in, we had teachers come in, we had *** student testify. We really tried to give her *** full picture of what it was that these students in lower wealth school districts were lacking. What was the picture that was painted? Well, I mean obviously you can't give it all to us, but I wish I could say it was, it was heartbreaking in many ways. So the superintendents came in and it was so gratifying to see in this decision, the judge talked about how credibly they testified, they testified about how they were giving their life over to educating these students because they felt education was so important and they would see these kindergartners walk in with these learning deficiencies, just gaps and what it was that they needed to be able to do in reading or math and they didn't have the resources to help them and they would watch these kids fall further and further behind every year. Uh, we had superintendents who came in and testified about some of the school buildings about how horrible they felt about the fact that these kids would go to school in buildings that were literally crumbling. We had 111 high school where they had to build *** fence around the school because they were afraid that the masonry that was falling off was going to fall on *** student's head here in Lancaster. We had in elementary school, I believe it was Price elementary school where they found lead in the pipes. One year they had to bring in bottled water because they couldn't afford to remediate the pipes and that went on for *** year. We had *** student who came in and testified, Michael Horvath who talked about going to schools in these conditions, not getting the help he needed and then he was, he was an athlete. So he would go to other schools in other districts and see their schools and he would wonder, why is it that I'm worth less? Why is there such *** disparity? Why is there such *** disparity? And that was part of why we really brought this suit was because we wanted every child to know you're not worth less. You have *** constitutional right to *** thorough and efficient system of education. It's funny, it seems so fundamental, but it's amazing and had to go to court. Yeah, it does actually one of my favorite stories. I had *** nine year old daughter at the time. I was practicing my opening statement as I usually do. I draft my kids in every once in *** while. And she was listening to me as I gave my opening argument and she looked at me and she said, but mommy, who would argue against you on this and what was your answer? They say? You know, it's it's it's hard to say, sweetie really is. The judge issued *** very strong ruling 700 plus pages and declared this system unconstitutional. Obviously you were pleased with that. Uh what was your reaction? Well, first of all, very gratified. Uh we felt that we had put on *** very strong factual case and if you read her opinion, it is very factually bound. She goes to great lengths to list all of the things that she saw in the school districts? The issues that existed with the school districts, the disparity both in the resources available to students as well as the outcomes, how students were able to perform on things like the pennsylvania system of school assessments, the P. S. S. ***. Exists partly to tell this commonwealth this is how your schools are doing and meeting the standards that we think are necessary for kids to be prepared for life and the disparity between what we saw in low wealth districts and high wealth districts was shocking and that disparity is reflected in her opinion. How did pennsylvania get to this point? And is it unique or other states in the same boat? Well, I think there have been *** series of educational funding cases across the United States. I don't think the commonwealth is the only place where there has been this kind of an issue. Uh, this exists largely because so much of the funding is put on the local school districts for schools. So one of the things we showed in our case is that these lower wealth school districts actually are taxing themselves at higher rates than some of the wealthier school districts. But because of the lack of income in their particular geography, they just can't raise as much money. So when you put so much of the funding responsibility on the localities and they can't raise the money that they need to provide the resources, students need to learn. You end up with *** system like this where you have massive disparities. All right, well let's stay here and continue the conversation about what possible solutions may be in pennsylvania. This is WGGL eight in focus coverage. You can count on we continue our conversation with Katie Robson, who is *** partner at El Melvin E and Myers and served as the lead trial counsel for this case that went on for about four months in Harrisburg, you got to know our area, right. I got to know beautiful downtown Harrisburg very well. What did the judge proposed as solutions or did she not? Is that left up to lawmakers or and other parties? So first of all, it's important to recognize that she issued *** decision in which she said that every child in pennsylvania has *** fundamental right to *** thorough, inefficient system of education that right there, that was largely what we needed her to do. Uh then she, she has said to the, to the General Assembly that she wants them to devise *** plan to help them get to *** place where they are going to meet that constitutional mandate. So obviously, we expect that the petitioner districts will be involved. We actually expect most districts will be involved in talking to the General Assembly about what that really looks like going forward. Now, all of that has to be done at her direction, which is why the specificity and the factual heft that she gave to her decision is so important. She gave us all *** lot of guidance on what it would be required in order for this system to come into compliance with the constitution is the way pennsylvania fund school districts? Just not *** good system. Property taxes. Is there *** better way do you think? Well, I think certainly this ballet That they have is not gonna work that there needs to be more help given to these lower wealth districts. So students get what they need because ultimately, what this is really about is making sure you have enough teachers, you have enough teaching assistance. We had stories about school books from the 1970s that were still being used where the last president listed was President Clinton and you can't, you can't teach school that way. And so those things have to get fixed. And there was some somewhat shocking test about people making accusations about people in lower wealth districts may not need the education because they're not going to do well, you know? Anyway. Yeah, there were on respondent side, there were some comments made about the fact that there were some, some students, I think the exact quote was we need people to flip pizzas and there we need people to work at Mcdonald's. Why would they need to be have an advanced understanding of biology. And I think from our side of the case, we saw it more as every student has the right to equality education period and then they get to make choices about what they want to do with their lives and its entry. You keep referring to lower wealth districts and that's not just urban districts that people might assume, but also many rural districts in Pennsylvania, which we have *** lot of absolutely, absolutely. And you know, one of my favorite stories from the case was actually about lower Marion and overbook there about four miles apart and the students from lower Marion who are from *** higher wealth school district actually marched with the students from Overbrook because they looked at Overbrook high school and they said, this just isn't right, Kids need more, we want to see our neighbors, the, the people that we interact with, get the same quality of education that we are. And I can remember listening to that story at trial and thinking if the high school students can see this and then we as adults, we have an obligation to respond to that need, we should all want students in any district to do well because it helps, helps everybody, helps our community or state or country. Absolutely. This is about making the commonwealth and more globally competitive economy. I mean, the commonwealth is, I've now spent four months here. It feels almost like home. It's an incredible place. But this is an advancing world. It's an evolving world and we want to make sure that kids everywhere have the education that they need in order to succeed and help the commonwealth succeed. We have *** new governor who certainly has proposed, you know, more funding for education as we have seen in the past. Um, do you have hopes that this will, you know, make *** marked improvement in pennsylvania? I absolutely do. I have hopes. I think that the public here is so committed to their Children and to their communities that with *** decision like this behind them, they will have the ability and the motivation to stand up and say, we expect to see our kids get the education that they need to be successful. This really was *** historic decision. It absolutely was. I'm so excited for the commonwealth, I'm so excited for the kids here. I have to say. At one point in the case I had this incredible opportunity to talk to *** few of the students who we were trying to help. And one of them talked about wanting to be *** nurse and one of them talked about wanting to be *** lawyer. And uh, I remember them saying, just thank you, thank you for being out there and trying to help us get the help that we need so that we can achieve our dreams. And to me that was, yeah, that makes it all worth it about. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for being here. We appreciate you coming from Washington to help us understand this better and coming up, we'll talk with the Superintendent of the School district of Lancaster which was one of the plaintiffs in the case. This is WGDL eight in focus coverage. You can count on I'm joined now by Matthew per Suara who's the acting Superintendent of the School district of Lancaster, one of the plaintiffs in this case, the district and you had to testify during this trial. What was that like? I was *** very intense experience. So we went many months of preparation to get ready for the testimony and then I got an opportunity to actually observe not only our superintendent dr Damaris rau her testimony, but others testifying. So for me *** great experience really to advocate for not only the school district of Lancaster, but for other schools in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. So I feel extremely honored to be able to testify in that case, but an experience like no other that would take longer than this session actually tell you about. How do you think this decision will impact districts? Well, I think the decision is going to be really great for school districts like the school district of Lancaster. So number one, what it's gonna do, it's really going to put the attention on how schools are underfunded currently. And that was primarily for our case. And then for us it will give us *** really great opportunity to have additional conversations with not only our local legislators here, but other advocates throughout the commonwealth to really get down to the nuts and bolts of what schools need in terms of adequate funding. So we can ensure that we have academic interventions for our students that we need especially coming out of covid that we really want to make sure we spend extra attention and really getting into those learning gaps to really accelerate their learning moving forward. And also other needs that we have is, you know, needs of our school buildings, we have aging school buildings that was part of our testimony. Now there's another program that the state has tapered off, which used to provide supplemental funding for schools to, you know, make them new, construct new buildings that no longer exists. So we really need every dollar that we can possibly get Not only from the state, but also working with our local tax base to ensure that we can keep up with our facilities, make them facilities for the 21st century, but also really providing those academic needs and human resources that are needing classrooms to help accelerate learning for students. How much of the district's budget is funded by property taxes, roughly. Right now, it's about 45% is just from local property taxes and that. It used to Much more state has provided funding over *** long period of time. I've been with the district for 15 years, so the actual percentage has decreased as we've been advocating for many years, but there's still *** huge burden on our local taxpayers were the second highest taxing district in Lancaster County were actually on the economic side, we don't have *** growing tax base, so that is *** huge burden for our taxpayers and we want to be very mindful of that, and that's where the state needs to come in and pay their adequate or fair share. So we can have *** great district and have great resources, much like the affluent districts across the commonwealth, like many urban districts, Lancaster surrounded by much wealthier and higher tax based school districts, correct, correct? Yes. So as you know, you look outside of the school district, Lancaster, there's *** lot of development going on as they sprawl into the suburbs. The school district of Lancaster is very concentrated where development is happening within the city or within the township and it doesn't happen at the rapid speed that you'll see on the outskirts in our suburbs. So again, back to being very mindful of what we can do in *** very concentrated area, it's *** huge burden. And if you look at our tax assessment chart, if you will, You see it's relatively flat and I've been able to district for almost 16 years and yes, we have bubbles in growth, but not where you would see in suburbs where you would actually see high spikes and growth. And again, that's new tax dollars for those communities. We just don't get those newer growth dollars like other communities. Do do you think this ruling gives greater voice for school choice or school vouchers in any way? Um it could definitely lead to that because if there's more resources in the, in the state appropriation for more money, I definitely think our legislators on one side of the aisle would probably have that conversation. But what I would ask our legislators to do is let's invest in the school districts and the public schools that we have already eliminate some of those mandate that they have that sometimes tie our hands and how we can do different things for students, for example, um you know, how we have to pay charter schools. So we're mandated in how we fund charter schools, which starts to erode our tax base or erode our money where we're sending money outside of the school district, where we already have those resources. We, the school district of Lancaster, we can provide the best services for our community. We want all the all the students within our community to come to our schools, that's what we want. We want to capture every student that lives in our community and not make choices outside of the school district of Lancaster. We want the opportunity with this adequate funding to invest in our schools, invest in our people, which really is an investment, our community for the future. Great thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. And coming up on W G *** L eight in focus, we'll talk with the Executive Director of Education voters P. ***. About what it's like to be involved in this case. This is WGGL eight in focus coverage. You can count on I'm joined now by Susan Spica, the Executive Director of Education voters of pennsylvania. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. This has certainly been *** long time in coming. What was your reaction to this ruling? We were just overjoyed that the judge declared the pennsylvania school funding system unconstitutional and affirmed what students and parents and families have known for so long that students can learn when they're given the tools, but that students in low wealth districts in pennsylvania are being denied their constitutional right to this quality of education and what was your organization's role? And where do you go from here with it? So, um education voters of pennsylvania works with parents around the state to build the public will so that we can have *** constitutional funding system that will meet the needs of all students. So we have been working with parents to help understand like what's at stake and to help raise awareness in communities around pennsylvania about the potential that this ruling has to change the lives of millions of Children and to completely make their futures like so much brighter, what do you think lawmakers should do now, now that the judge ordered them to do something, Right? So I think lawmakers should get to work, they should go back to Harris and get to work on *** system that will provide students the quality of education that they are entitled to under the constitution, and that is going to mean substantial increases in funding for schools and it's going to be *** special attention to ensuring that dollars are driven to low wealth school districts where there is the greatest need for funding. The judge said every student deserves, I think she said *** meaningful education, what does that mean? So when, when kids go into classrooms, they should have the resources that, that teachers and educators know will help them be successful in their schools. So kids need small class sizes, they should have extra help when they need extra help. If they have english language learner needs, they should have those types of teachers in their classrooms, they should have counseling, they should have extracurricular activities. So basically the chilled, who live in low wealth school districts should have the same opportunities as Children who live in high wealth school districts. And, and then when, when we have all of our kids having their needs met, we can have *** commonwealth where, where kids thrive when they're young and graduate and then they can go on to build the economy that we're going to need in the future, Some will argue. And as you told me that pennsylvania already spends more than many other states per student. How do you justify what needs to be done? Right. So, um, overall Pennsylvania has high spending number, but the state itself is incredibly cheap. So the state provides just one third of the funding that goes to K- 12 schools. The rest is made up primarily by property taxes. So when the state is so cheap and communities are very dependent on their local wealth to pay for schools, it means that wealthy communities are able to raise the property taxes, they need to provide ample opportunities for students with not that much effort by their taxpayers, but in low wealth communities where there is not *** property tax base with *** lot of wealth, they raise taxes over and over again and they have such high tax burdens. So some of the lowest wealth school districts in pennsylvania, their property taxpayers have four times the tax burden. People in high wealth districts. And so low wealth communities are trying to fund their schools, but they just can't do it without additional state support. It just seems like who wouldn't think that every student, whatever district should receive the same kind of education in pennsylvania. Right, Absolutely. And so I think that we have great hope that state lawmakers will recognize that it is time to end their battle against funding for schools, that they will just comply with this order and move forward doing what the judge has ordered, which is to ensure that we are not violating students constitutional right to the quality public education that they're guaranteed. You said pennsylvania has been cheap. Why do you think that is? So, you know, we just, we have *** legislature that, that just doesn't seem to historically have valued public education for students, *** legislature that's happy to constantly push the cost of educating kids on to local communities and, and thinks that kids deserve what they get. Um, and that clearly has not worked. And it's clearly time for that to change because it's unconstitutional. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for being here and thanks for your insights. Yeah, thank you. We did reach out to the Department of Education but no one from the department was available for an interview and we also reached out to House Republican leader brian Cutler but he has not replied. Thank you for joining us for W G *** L eight in Focus for all of us at W G *** L. I'm Susan Spiro and join us again. Neck saturday night at seven o'clock for W G *** L eight in Focus right after NBC nightly news and you can watch each episode of in focus plus W G *** L. S latest newscast, original programming and more. Just download the very local app and stream for free on Roku and amazon fire tv.