In the final installment of a three-part series on Pennsylvania State Government, we look at a recent Commonwealth Court case that has the potential to radically change state funding for public schools across Pennsylvania. On Feb. 7, 2023, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled in the case of William Penn School District vs. the Pennsylvania Dept. of Education that the state has failed to provide all children with a “thorough and efficient” education system as required by the state constitution. Jubelirer agreed that the current system deprives low income and property value areas that include urban marginalized Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) populations and students of underfunded rural school districts equal access to a quality public education. 

In Jubelirer’s order, she explicitly declared that the state legislature and executive branches must change the current property tax-based system of funding public education to one that will ensure all students across the Commonwealth have equal access to a comprehensive, effective and contemporary system of public education. But what does this mean? Currently, just over 40% of funding for public schools comes from property taxes collected each year on all land and buildings owned by individuals and companies in the state. Property tax funding creates wealth disparity among school districts which creates a corresponding education disparity. 

Lower income areas suffer from a tax base with low property values and low taxes, and this leads to an erosion of the funding that supports public schools. Increasing property taxes in these districts only increases the financial strain and burden on those living in the community. Urban schools like William Penn serve a predominantly African American community in Philadelphia.  These schools have lagged behind neighboring suburban schools that have higher property values and a higher tax base. Penn’s lack of adequate school funding creates a disparity in the quality of education between rich and poor districts. 

Pennsylvania is ranked fifth in most unequal funding distribution between school districts nationally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The new ruling seeks to end this disparity by requiring the legislature and executive branches to reform the current funding formula. Jubelirer did not specifically strike down previous education reform, the 2016 Fair Funding Formula Act, which reallocated money from the richer eastern half of the state to the poorer western half. Although Jubelirer did not outline specifically how the state should restructure public school funding, there are solutions implemented by other states that could be applied to Pennsylvania. 

Pennsylvania could opt to transfer to a system of total state funding for education rather than rely on its current hybrid property tax and state funding mix. However, this would cause the state to increase state taxes by 10% to replace local property taxes. This solution would prove extremely unpopular with taxpayers across the state. Alternatively, a more progressive solution may be to apply a wealth tax on personal income of over $1 million. This would generate $2 billion annually of the estimated $4.5 billion needed to completely fund public education. Republican legislators in Harrisburg have already announced their opposition to the ruling, according to the Capitol Star. Republicans claim the state Constitution grants the state legislature ultimate control over funding the education system. They point out that increases to public school funding over the past eight years have not improved the quality of education and allege existing funding has been wasted by schools.

However, the court still has the power to force the legislature to act on Justice Jubelirer’s ruling. In 2012, the Washington State legislature failed to tackle education inequality and the Washington State Supreme Court fined the state $100,000 a day until the system was corrected. Only a matter of time will tell how this situation will play out in Pennsylvania in the coming months and years, but Jubelirer has taken the first step in publicly recognizing the school funding inequity problem facing public education. Her ruling states, it is now the obligation of the Legislature, Executive Branch and educators, to make the constitutional promise of a quality education for all public school students a reality.